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It was the kindest thing to her, but it was very hard for the rector to go down to his library still in ignorance. The spell of peace had been rudely broken, and his fire was out. He lifted Helen's bonnet, still heavy with rain, and laid it on the cloak she had thrown across a chair, and then stood and looked at them as though they could explain the mystery of her return.
Barbara McIntyre turned on her pillow and rubbed her sleepy eyes; surely she had been mistaken in thinking she heard the telephone bell ringing. Even as she lay striving to listen, she dozed off again, to be rudely awakened by Helen's voice at her ear. "Babs!" came the agitated whisper. "The envelope's gone." "Gone!" Barbara swung out of bed. "Gone where?" "Father has it."
Aren't you happy and proud? And how did the workmen take it?" "The people in the office were very nice," he answered, smiling back at her. "Good old George looked a little like he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The men in the plant don't know yet, except Charlie I told him." A little shadow fell over Helen's happy face and she looked away.
She had that breadth between the eyes which, whilst not an attribute of perfect beauty, indicates an active mind, and is often found in Scotch women; now, by the slight raising of her eyebrows, this space was accentuated. But Helen's rapid thinking availed her not at all.
Here a ship of sixty guns, the Resolution, was waiting to receive the earl as her captain. Not till Wenlock was on board, and sailing out from Spithead past Saint Helen's, had he any notion whither the fleet was bound. He, with several other young men and boys, were occupants of part of the captain's cabin, which was devoted to them. "You will see some service, Christison," said the earl.
"We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?" He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's face, and for her alone he had ears. "Yes," he said again with nervous platitude, when once more they had lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife nor myself has any friend to take your place."
The barking of the dogs lessened and then ceased; once more only the whistling of the wind broke the silence, until Helen's skirts rubbed the heather as she ran and something jingled in her basket.
Helen's thoughts, in the idea of his being torn from her, could not wrest themselves from the dire images of his execution; she shuddered, and in faltering accents replied, "Ah! could we glide from sleep into so blessed a death, I would hail it even for thee!
It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone. This was Helen's evening won at what cost, and not to be marred by the sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word. "One isolates," said Helen slowly. "I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of pity, and almost of revenge.
Helen's creditors have proved more than reasonable, with the exception of the furniture people; their demands were such that there seemed no alternative but to surrender the goods. As the men who came for them advanced into the room, stammering questions about the articles they were to remove, Helen struggled to her feet and started to meet them, then stopped, clutching at a table for support.
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