"Well?"
"Oh, it's all right, but I thought I'd tell you. If only Cadge'd come! That's what eating me!" Kitty groaned. "But do you see our Princess? All she needed was me to make her comfy. Shall I get you the least little bit of colour, out of a box, Helen? Or—no; you're too lovely. But come, you must have some roses."
As Helen joined us, very pale in her shimmering dress, with her hair like an aureole about her head, she looked a tall, white Grace, a swaying lily shining in the dusky place. Almost with the old reverence I whispered:—
"You are the most beautiful of woman!"
"Do I please you, Sir?" she said, smiling as she moved away again with Kitty. "Won't you see to Father? He's come without his necktie."
"Sho, Sis!" said Mr. Winship; "don't my beard hide it? Declare I clean forgot."
Soon Helen returned to pin a flower at my button-hole.
"WherecanCadge be?" she cried gaily; but her hands shook and she dropped the rose. "Do you suppose she's interviewing a lunatic asylum?"
What had changed her voice and burned fever spots in her cheeks? I wasn't so indifferent as I had seemed to Kitty's news. Had she told Helen, too, that Ned Hynes—what was he to my betrothed?
"Can't you rest somewhere and just show for the ceremony?" I said, "Nelly, you're not strong."
"There's not a place big enough for a mouse. But did you mean it? Do I really look well to-night? Am I just as beautiful as I was three-four months ago, or have I—"
"Oh, do slip out and 'phone theStar! I can feel my hair whitening," whispered Kitty, turning to me hastily, as a couple of women entered. "See, folks are beginning to come."
I went out into the warm and rainy night, but there was no Cadge at theStaroffice. By the time I had returned with this information, the eyry held a considerable gathering. Mrs. Baker had arrived, and her two daughters; but I had no time to wonder at Milly's coming, for behind me entered Mrs. Van Dam and then, among a group of strangers, I noticed Hynes.
Involuntarily, at sight of him, my eyes turned to Helen; but not a muscle of her face betrayed deeper feeling than polite pleasure as she helped Kitty receive the wedding guests, greeting the General cordially, Hynes with graciousness.
Kitty's welcome to Mrs. Van Dam would have been irresistibly funny, if I had had eyes to see the humour.
"Cadge promised to be home early," she sputtered, "but probably she's telling some one this minute: 'Oh, I'll be there in time; I don't need much—not much more than the programme.'
"Can'tyouguess where she is, Pros.?" she implored in an undertone, as her brother approached us. "If the minister gets here before Cadge does, I'll cut her off with a shilling."
"What an interesting place!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam, examining her surroundings through her quizzing glasses. "I've heard so much about your paintings, Miss Reid. And what an astonishing girl, this Miss Bryant! Where can she be? Helen, you sly girl, I hear news about you."
"Oh, very likely Miss Bryant is out of town," Reid answered for her with a quiet smile. "She'll show up after the paper goes to press, if not sooner."
"On her wedding day! The girl's a genius! And when may that be? When will the—ah—when will the paper go to press?"
"They take copy up to two o'clock for the second edition. But she maybe here at any moment."
The General stared at him with amazement.
"Oh, you don't know Cadge," sighed Kitty, "if you think she'd be jarred by her own wedding. But we must do something. Everybody's here and waiting. Sing, Helen, won't you? Oh, do sing."
Helen had not joined in the rapid conversation. Now she smiled assent with stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a mandolin—not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmanship in inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the puckers in her forehead every minute growing deeper.
While I listened to the gladsome music, my glance strayed to Milly, but she was almost hidden by the curtains of the tepee; and then to Ned, who sat with his face turned partly away from us. I noticed that he looked gaunt, and I found a bitter satisfaction in the thought that, perhaps, in Helen's "three-four months" he had not seen, until that night, either of the women with whose lives his own had been entangled.
"Just one more," begged Kitty, when Helen stopped. "You're my only hope; do sing, Helen."
Dropping the mandolin, Helen began without accompaniment "The King of Thule:"—
"'There stood the old carouser,And drank the last life glow;And hurled the hallowed gobletInto the tide below.
"He saw it plunging and filling,And sinking deep in the sea;Then fell his eyelids forever,And never more drank he!'"
It was the ballad she had sung at Christmas—in what different mood! Then her voice had been as carefree as a bird's carol, but now it lent to the limpid simplicity of the air a sobbing, shuddering sweetness—an almost weird intensity that strangely affected her listeners.
When she had finished, something like a gasp went through the room. With a heart-breaking coldness I felt that I was her only unmoved auditor, or—no; Ned seemed studying with weary disapproval the pattern of his shoes.
"Love and death; and at a wedding!" Mrs. Van Dam shivered. "Something more cheerful, Helen."
"Let's go—let's go and eat up Cadge's spread; that'd be cheerful," sniffed Kitty, her hot, nervous hand patting Helen's shoulder. "The Princess's tired. But we must do something."
"Eat the wedding supper before the wedding. Original, I must say!"
But the General willingly enough helped Kitty to marshal us into the crowded little dining-room; where Helen and I found ourselves beside Mr. Winship and Ethel. Her father accepted Helen's music with as little surprise as he had shown at her beauty.
"Comin' home pretty soon, ain't ye," he asked, "to give us some hymn tunes Sunday evenings? W'at'll I git for ye? Must be hungry after so much singing."
"I'm afraid I wasn't in voice to-night," said she rather wearily.
"Not in voice!" protested Ethel with shy enthusiasm; "why, Nelly, I never before heard even you sing like that; it was-it was-oh, it was wonderful!"
I dared not look at her, yet I saw every movement of the slight little figure—saw the blush of eagerness that mounted even to the blonde little curls about her forehead; and, retreating impatiently, I tried to follow Mr. Winship's example, as he waited on the company with a quaintly fine courtesy. Indeed, he made quite a conquest of the General, who presently, after chatting with him for some time with keen interest, asked abruptly:—
"Why haven't we had him here before? So interesting, such an original! Room here for you, Milly. Some salad, please, Mr. Hynes."
Hynes's pinched face took colour. With alacrity he obeyed the General's orders, fetching plates and glasses, and hovering about the group that included Milly and her mother, until Mrs. Baker's face began to wear a disturbed flush, though Milly's small, white features remained impassive.
I watched the little drama with dawning comprehension. Then Ned did not—Helen—it was really Ethel's sister with whom he longed to make peace, while I—Ethel—
Helen's voice roused me.
"Can't we go into the other room?" she asked. "I'm tired; can't we go and sit quietly together?"
With the fading of the glow and colour left by the music, she looked indeed tired, almost haggard. In spite of the regal self possession with which she rose, drawing Ethel with her, I knew in the face of Milly's triumph-yes, I had known before—why her restless spirit had spurred her on to such flights of folly; why she had—she brings no love to me; has she perhaps offered pity?
We turned together to the door, but there was a sound of hurrying feet, and Miss Bryant rushed before us, followed by a big bearded giant of a man.
"Forbear and eat no more till my necessities be served," she declaimed, advancing to the table. "Food has not passed my lips to-day; or—not much food."
"Cadge!" gasped Helen with a choking laugh, sinking again upon her chair.
Reid calmly extended a plate of salad to his betrothed, while Kitty groaned, scandalized:—
"You mustn't eat now! You mustn't! Where've you been? Look at the state you're in!Don'teat, Cadge; you must dress this minute!"
"Bridgeport," returned Miss Bryant, grinning benevolently on the wedding guests, her wet hair clinging about her face, her shirt waist dampened with the raindrops that trickled from her hatbrim. "Driving an antelope to a racing sulky. IfIbear marks, y'ought to see the antelope;andthe sulky! Seven column picture, Kitty; I've made a lay-out. You must get right at it—antelope kicking the atmosphere into small pieces—"
"Cadge," suggested Reid, mildly, "our train leaves at midnight."
"We'll make it; but this story must come out whether or not 'Mrs. Prosper K. Reid' does. Won't dress, but—say, just you show my wedding gown, Kitty; not for publication but as an evidence—more salad, Pros."
Kitty ran and brought a billowy mass of fleecy white stuff, and Cadge stood, devouring salad, over the dainty thing, gesticulating at it with her fork and explaining its beauties:—
"You can see for yourselves it's swell. Mrs. Edgar fitted me at theStaroffice, with furious mug-makers pounding on the door."
"Withwhat?" gasped the General.
"Mug-makers; alleged artists; after an old photo. Anyhow, it's money in Mrs. Edgar's pocket. One of her biggest customers owes her a lot, she says, and she can't get a cent; needed cash to pay her rent; little boy ill, too. My, but I'm hungry! Can't I eat while I'm being married?"
I felt Helen start; I remembered that I had seen Mrs. Edgar's name among her bills. Poor girl!
And then the wedding; and the practical Cadge surprised us all.
All her soul was shining in her eyes as she said, "I will." She looked upon Pros. with the shy love of a girl who has loved but once. For a brief minute we saw the depth, the earnestness, the affection that in her seek so often the mask of frivolity, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than one tempest-tossed soul envied her peace, her love, her certitude.
The ceremony was short. The giant, who proved to be Big Tom, gave away the bride. As the couple rushed off for a brief honeymoon, the newly made Mrs. Reid—still with the shimmer of tears in her beautiful eyes—tried hard to resume her old manner.
"'Member, Kitty," she called back from the stairway in a voice that trembled, "you can't make that antelope cavort too lively. Brown'll send photographs in the morning."
Soon only Mr. Winship and I were left with Kitty and Helen and the painted Indians.
"What a Cadge!" said Helen languidly, as she walked with us to the door. "But she's the best girl in the world."
I believe she's pretty nearly right. I haven't always done Miss Bryant justice. My mind dwelt upon the lovely picture she had made of trust and happiness; and I wondered whether my own wife would show shining, happy eyes like hers when—In my restless dreams the vision of them lingered, grotesquely alternating with a swaying figure driving a shadowy antelope—a figure that was sometimes Helen's and sometimes little Ethel's—until I waked—
And thus began to-day—it has been the hardest day in a hard week.
It is three hours now, maybe, since we returned from Mrs. Baker's Sunday dinner. A love feast after a feud is trying, but Helen was brave. Mrs. Baker is too honest for diplomacy, and at first I watched Helen nervously, as she sat in the familiar library, a red spot in each cheek, pitting a quiet hauteur against the embarrassed chirpings of her aunt and Milly's sphynx-like silence.
But little by little the cordiality of the Judge and of his tactful sister, helped by Ethel's radiant delight and Mr. Winship's pleasure in the visit, gave another flavour to the dinner than that of the fatted calf, and warmed the atmosphere out of its chill reminiscence of the encounter with Hynes.
The children, too, were a resource, though for a minute Joy was a terror. Baker, junior, was offering me a kodak picture, when she came running up to look at it.
"You can have it," said Boy; "it's clearer than the one you liked the other day."
"Thath me!" cried Joy, with a fiendish hop and skip. "Me'n Efel on 'e thidewalk. Mither Burke, you like me'n Efel?"
"I like you very much."
"Efel too, or o'ny me? Mr. Burke, w'y you don't like Efel too?"
Like Ethel—the shy little wild flower! Like Ethel!
"Say, Mr. Burke," said Boy opportunely, "here's an envelope to put it in."
"W'at I like," Mr. Winship said, his frosty blue eyes twinkling with enjoyment, "is to see Sis here gittin' a good dose o' home folks; do her more good'n med'cine."
And almost he seemed right, for, as the minutes wore on, a brighter colour rose to Helen's cheeks, and the marvellous charm she knows so well how to use held us fascinated. She waged a war of jests with the Judge and fell back into her old caressing ways with Miss Baker. Ethel could scarcely contain her happiness, and even Milly showed signs of melting.
I brought Helen away as early as I could—as soon as we had completed plans for a quiet wedding next Wednesday.
"I hope you're proud of her, Ezra," declared Mrs. Baker as we took leave; "she told you she's refused a title? But there! All foreigners break their wives' hearts—Nelly's a sensible girl! You didn't expect, though, to find New York crazy over her?"
"Oh, I don't know; Helen 'Lizy's ma was a hansome girl; Sis here had ought to be satisfied if she wears a half as well."
"Come again thoon to thing to Joy," lisped the baby; "Joy loveth you tho muth."
Helen buried her face in the yellow curls, and when she turned away her eyes were wet.
I stayed at the studio only long enough to beg Kitty to see that her charge rests. Just as we were parting at the door, Helen turned full on me her great, lambent eyes.
"Do you love me?" she asked suddenly.
"Why, I loved you," I replied, "when you were a little freckled Nelly in pigtails."
And that, at least, is true! God help me to be kind to the most beautiful woman in the world!
June 21, 19—.
Helen and I were to have been married just a year ago. To-day I have been going over her own story of her life—of her meeting with Darmstetter, of the blight he cast upon her, of her growth in loveliness, her brief fluttering in the sunshine, her failure, her supping with sorrow, her death.
I must bring to a close the record of this miracle.
This who was the most extraordinary woman that ever lived, was also little Nellie Winship. Again as I remember her as she was—a thing of such vital force that no man could be unmoved in her presence, of such supernal loveliness that words can never tell of it—again I feel that I must be in an ugly dream. But this bit of paper, blotted with tears and stained with wine and ashes, tells me that there was no mistake.
She had seemed in high spirits that Sunday at the Bakers', though she was tired when we returned to the studio. Mr. Winship and I made no stop. Pros. and Cadge were enjoying their brief honeymoon trip and so Kitty and Helen were left together.
Monday morning I went first to the rooms I had taken; Kitty was to be there later, arranging our little furniture. She was to live with us for a time and care for Nelly. But when I reached the office, there lay on my desk a telegram.
"Helen is ill; come," it read.
Cadge met me at the studio door, white-faced, strangely, silently gentle. From a tumbled heap among the cushions of the tepee came a voice like Kitty's, moaning. Cadge tried to speak, but could only point to the little bedroom.
There, in the straight white dress she wore at the wedding, Helen lay, as if sleeping, upon a couch. Floods of shining hair fell about her shoulders. In the white dignity of death her face was marvellous. All trace of stress and strain had left it, replaced by an enigmatic calm. She looked not merely beautiful, but Beauty's self vouchsafed to mortal eyes.
I do not know how long I gazed. Vaguely, between Kitty's sobs, I heard the ticking of a watch.
"For another woman of such loveliness," at length said a reverent voice behind me, "we must wait the final evolution of humanity."
Dr. Upton, one of Reid's friends whom I had seen at the wedding, had reached the house before me. He had been examining a glass, a spoon and some other objects so quietly that I had not heard. He said that Helen had been dead some hours.
Mechanically I listened, but it was not until afterward that I understood the full purport of his speech or of Kitty's story of the night and morning. Their words reached me as if spoken from some great distance by the people who live in dreams.
Kitty had come to us; she stood in the doorway, white and shaking.
"Helen—Helen's head ached," she sobbed, "and she begged me to brush her hair, but when I began, she said it hurt, and told me to stop; then she fell to writing. I coaxed her to come to bed, for I thought she was ill; but she called me 'Kathryn' and then I knew I couldn't manage her. Oh, I was wicked, wicked; but I was afraid of her, always—you know. So I—oh, how could I?—I fixed a screen against the light and lay down, meaning to try again in a few minutes; but the instant my head touched the pillow I must have dropped asleep. The last thing I said was: 'Shall I tell Morphy you're coming?' I was so tired that I don't know whether she answered. And this morning—oh, I can't believe it; Oh, Helen, Helen!"
"And this morning?" prompted Dr. Upton.
"This morning when—when I waked and saw her on the couch, I wondered why she hadn't come to bed; but I dropped a shawl over her and tiptoed out. It wasn't until half-past eight that I tried—oh, I can't! I can't! Don't ask me!"
Kitty's voice was lost in hysterical chokings.
Dr. Upton handed me Helen's visiting card. Below the name was scrawled: "P. P. C."
"It was found pinned to Miss Reid's bedspread," he said; "is that Miss Winship's handwriting?"
"Yes," I answered. The shaky letters were unrecognisable.
"Don't you see! To say farewell," wailed Kitty. "She's done it a hundred times when she started for school before I was up. Barnard is so far. Oh, I can't bear it! How could you, Helen?"
"Don't, Kitty," said Cadge, drawing her from the room.
The doctor motioned me to a table behind the screen of which Kitty had spoken. There Helen had sat, there lay her writing case, the key sealed in an envelope addressed to me. Picking up a slip of paper torn from a letter pad, he asked:—
"Is this also Miss Winship's writing?"
He held it out to me and I read the single line:—
"Don't tell Father."
Dazed, half-comprehending, I repeated: "Yes."
Upton had found nothing else, except Helen's watch, open beside the writing case, and a glass that still held a little sherry. At this he looked with sombre intelligence and set it carefully aside.
Nothing in the room had been disturbed. Helen's chair had the look of having been pushed from the table as she rose but a minute before. Near it on an easel stood the Van Nostrand picture, smiling—smiling, as if it had seen no tragedy. On the floor was a little ash as of charred paper.
In a few minutes Mrs. Reid and Kitty returned with Mr. Winship. Through the fog that enveloped me I saw with dull curiosity that they had told him something that he didn't understand.
He could not believe Helen dead, but knelt by her side and coaxed her to wake, rubbing her fair, slender hands between his leathery palms and calling her by every pet name of her childhood.
"It's on'y your ol' Dad, Sis," he crooned. "Jes' come to fetch ye t' yer Ma; that's all. I know yer tired—plum tired out; but Ma 'n' me'll take care on ye." It was pitiful to hear him.
He desisted at last and looked back at us with a mien of anger.
"Do suthin', some o' ye," he snarled, "'stid o' standin' round like gumps! Speak to me, Poppet; tell yer ol' Pap w'at ails ye. Fetch some hot water, you gals! Ain't ye got no sense? Rub her feet; an' her hands. Speak to me, Sissy—why don't ye?"
As the truth slowly won over him, he straightened himself, one hand still clasping Helen's cold one.
"It's sudden; sudden," he said. "Doctor, w'at ailed my little Nelly?"
Still numbly inquisitive, I waited. The old man couldn't see the truth, the horrible truth. What would the doctor say?
It was Cadge's voice that broke the silence; gentle, assured, yet with a note almost of defiance.
"We think—in fact, Helen overstudied," she said. "We've been much worried about her."
Dr. Upton turned abruptly. Cadge's irregular, mobile face for once was still, its quiet demand bent full upon him. His answering look refused her, but the effort was obvious with which he spoke to the broken man waiting his verdict.
"Miss Winship—your daughter—" he began.
The words died. Cadge's steady black eyes controlled him.
"Wa-al?"
The doctor bowed his head over Helen. I was listening again to her watch that ticked insistently. "Don't tell Father! Don't tell Father!" it said over and over, over and over, louder and louder, until the words echoed from every corner of the room.
They must hear! That was why she had left it!
"I ast ye w'at ailed my little girl."
"Cardiac asthenia—heart failure," said Dr. Upton, abruptly.
Kitty threw herself upon Cadge, kissing her convulsively, while Mr. Winship persisted:—
"Sis was first-rate yist'day; w'at fetched the attack on?"
As gently as Cadge herself, Dr. Upton answered:—
"Mr. Winship, your daughter wasn't so strong as she seemed. There was much in her condition to cause anxiety. I'll be back in an hour," he added, moving hastily, as Reid entered, toward the door.
Could I let him shoulder the responsibility of concealment? And if I refused? Publicity—an inquest? At last I was alive to the situation; in silent gratitude I wrung Upton's hand, but he took no notice of me. As he passed Reid he growled:—
"Your wife's a good woman to tie to, Pros. She's all right. Lucky she was telegraphed for."
Cadge had begun to talk in low tones to Mr. Winship. He did not seem to listen, but the quiet voice soothed him. Gradually his gray, set features relaxed, though he would not submit to be led from the bedside.
"Ma was right," he said at last, broken and querulous. "We'd never ought to have let her come to the city. Ye say she'll be famous? Sissy, my poor little Poppet, w'at good to ye is fame; w'at good is all your studyin'?"
* * * * *
I did not open Helen's writing case for weeks; not until after my return from the dreary journey West with Mr. Winship.
Stunned by the shock of her death, bearing not only my grief but the knowledge that her father and mother must hold me in part responsible for her fatal coming to New York, I could not face the secret of her choice of death rather than marriage with me.
It was a hot July night when I turned the key that guarded the secret.
I found the story of the Bacillus, the curse that killed Darmstetter, that killed Helen. With it was a letter that I have read a thousand times—this letter that I am now reading. The scent of roses still breathes from it. On the last page there are splashes of wine.
This is what it says:—
JOHN: I cannot bear it. Prof. Darmstetter gave me death when he gave me beauty.
I am not a coward; but what is left? I am tired, wretched; there is no place for me.
The Bacillus has defeated every wish it has aroused. It has refused me love, ambition, honest work. From men it has compelled fear; from women hate; it has cut me off from my kind.
You saw Ned smiling into Milly's pale eyes. I should not have cared, I who was to marry you, but—I love him; you know it—you have known it since my heart broke, since I tore it out and swore to reign, to dazzle, to be Queen of the world.
You know what came of my ambitions. The world treated my beauty as a menace; it struck me down. Then I asked to earn my bread; but without you I might have starved. You were my refuge—and you—you love a cripple!
Why didn't I guess? I would have been glad, for Ethel is a dear child, and I had given you sorrow enough. I did not love you; I do not think I have pretended to love you. But can no man help seeming to care for me—help caring while he is with me? Ned told me he did not love; but you, you I trusted; you would have married me, not letting me know—
Ethel limps, she is plain. Plain as I was when you adored my ugly face, my freckles. Does beauty kill love, or do men see beauty only where they love? Little brown partridges, little brown partridges—
The Bacillus is a cheat; every woman to her lover is the most beautiful!
Ethel's good. You would have found me conspicuous, an annoyance among people who shrink from the extraordinary. I have been fond of Ethel.
I was marrying you to get my debts paid—you knew that—but there was more. You must believe—you know there was more. I thought you loved me. Was that strange? How many times have you spoken to me of love? I wanted to show my gratitude, to make you happy, since happiness was not for me. I would have tried; I would have buried my own misery; buried everything but the sense of your goodness. I would have given you the co-operation of a clever woman. I would have given you the affection you know I have always felt. I would have worked, planned, compelled success for you.
But that's over. Ethel is a dear child. I will not stand between you and Ethel.
Don't pity me. I need no pity. I would endure yesterday and to-day a thousand times for the sake of the first hour of my beauty. Would I change now to be like Ethel, to be white putty like Milly—to have your love, or Ned's? Beauty—I can die with it sooner than drown it in tears.
Don't tell Father. He will suffer; but less than if I went home to eat my heart out in repinings, to grow old and ugly, cursing the world. I have lived too long. I am already less beautiful.
If I could destroy the secret! Death, leaving that behind, is crucifixion. But I was the first, I was the first! That dead face so gray and old—"Delilah!" it mows at me. I keep my promise! I haven't robbed you, you shall have your fame! I, too, I shall never be forgotten!
John, take the secret. Keep my word for me. If you doubt the discovery, try it on an enemy. If you think my sorrow could have been avoided, offer the Bacillus as a wedding gift to—.
Give Milly, who has Ned's love, my beauty? Would it turn him from her? If I thought it—But even for that, there shall be no other! It shall go first. Forever and forever my name, my face,—
"Delilah!" It grins, it gibbers. Wait for no tests. Print quick! To-morrow, to-day—it's almost day. Give him what he wants, John—"Delilah!"
Why do you come back, dead face, dead eyes? Haven't I promised? You shall have print, type, a million circulation! Go away, you're dead! What's fame to youth, health, life? It's you who rob and kill. I won't look—I won't! If I wake Kitty, could she help? I won't look, I'm going mad!
Gone! I must hurry. He might come back. Shall I leave the secret? It's life for life, we're even. If beauty were cheap, who'd care for it? It's death to be first, but afterwards—nothing! If I burned it—but no—I promised—.
Why not?
"Delilah!" Your health, dead eyes! I haf put t'e bacillus of perfect vine into t'e new grape juice, and I svear it's—Prosit, dead eyes!—here's a P.P.C.; quickest goodby—Poor Kitty! You'll be sorry for the most beautiful woman in the—
The Bacillus of Beauty has had its victim.
Why do I keep the wine-splashed, rose-breathing letter? Why read over and over the fragments of Helen's journal? Better remember my little school-mate as she was before the poison stung her. Might she, with time and contact with life, have reacted against the virus, or must such loveliness be fatal to what is best in woman? Who can answer? Helen is dead, Darmstetter is dead, and the Bacillus—
The Bacillus shall have no other victim.
We who were near to Helen have been slow to recover from the shock and the bitterness of her death. Her father and mother have nothing to hold them to life; they are uprooted. Ned has grieved for her with bitter self-reproach, though he is happy with Milly. Ethel and I—
But to-night I can think only of Helen.
THE END.