At which she said with sudden, half-sobbing violence, "Oh, _don't;_ I can't bear it. I am not good."

The doctor sobered. This really was too near the abnormal to be safe; he must bring her out of it. He must make her realize, not only that she was not to blame about Sam Wright, but that the only shadow on her goodness was this same morbid feeling that she was not good. He got up again and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at her with good-natured determination.

"Now look here!" he said, "conscience is a good thing; but conscience, unrestrained by common sense, does a fine work for the devil. That isn't original, Dr. Lavendar said it; but it's true. I wish Dr.

Lavendar knew of this morbid idea of yours about responsibility--he'd shake it out of you! Won't you let me tell him?"

"Oh, no! no! Please don't!"

"Well, I won't; but he would tell you that it was wrong not to see straight in this matter; it's unfair to your--to Providence," William said. He did not use religious phrases easily, and he stumbled over "unfair to your Heavenly Father," which was what Dr. Lavendar had said in some such connection as this: "Recognize your privileges and be grateful for the help they have been in making you as good as you are.

To deny what goodness you have is not humility, it's only being unfair to your Heavenly Father." But William could not say a thing like that; so he blundered on about Providence, while Helena sat, trembling, her cheek on David's hair.

"You are as good as any mortal of us can be," William declared, "and better than ninety-nine mortals in a hundred. So there! Why Mrs.

Richie"--he hesitated, and the color mounted slowly to his face; "your loveliness of character is an inspiration to a plain man like me."

It was intolerable. With a breathless word, she rose, swaying a little under the burden of the sleeping child; then, moving swiftly across the room, she laid him on a sofa. David murmured something as she put him down, but she did not stop to hear it. She came back and stood in front of William King, gripping her hands together in a pa.s.sion of denial.

"Stop. I can't bear it. I can't sit there with David in my arms and hear you say I am good. It isn't true! I can't bear it--" She stopped short, and turned away from him, trembling very much.

The doctor, alarmed at this outbreak of hysteria, and frowning with concern, put out his kind protesting hands to take hers. But she cringed away from him.

"Don't," she said hoa.r.s.ely; and then in a whisper: "He is not--my brother."

William, his hand still outstretched, stared at her, his mouth falling slowly open.

"I told you," she said, "that I wasn't--good."

_"My G.o.d!"_ said William King. He stepped back sharply, then suddenly sat down, leaning his head on his clenched hand.

Helena, turning slightly, saw him. "I always told you I wasn't," she cried out angrily; "why would you insist on saying I was?"

He did not seem to notice her, though perhaps he shrank a little. That movement, even if she only imagined it, was like the touch of flame.

She felt an intolerable dismay. It was more than anger, far more than terror; it seemed to envelop her whole body with a wave of scarlet. It was a new, unbearable, burning anguish. It was shame.

She had an impulse to tear it from her, as if it were some tangible horror, some blazing film, that was covering her flesh. With a cry, she broke out:

"You don't understand! I am not wicked. Do you hear me? I am not wicked. You must listen I"

He made no answer.

"I am not wicked--the way you think. My husband killed my baby. I told you that, long ago. And I could not live with him. I couldn't I Don't you see? Oh, listen, please! Please listen! And Lloyd loved me, and he said I would be happy. And I went away. And we thought Frederick would divorce me, so we could be married. But he didn't. Oh, he didn't _on purpose_! And we have been waiting for him to die. And he didn't die--he wouldn't die!" she said with a wail. "But now he is dead, and--"

And what? Alas, what? She waited a second, and then went on, with pa.s.sionate conviction, "And now I am to be married. Yes, you see, I am not as wicked as you think. I am to be married; you won't think me wicked then, will you? Not when I am married? I couldn't have you say those things while I sat and held David. But now I am to be married."

In her excitement she came and stood beside him, but he would not look at her. Silence tingled between them. Over on the sofa, David stirred and opened his eyes.

"The child!" William King said; "be careful." He went and lifted David to his feet. "Go up-stairs, my boy." He did not look at Mrs. Richie, who bent down and kissed David, mechanically,

"I dreamed," the little boy mumbled, "'at my rabbits had earrings; an'--"

"Go, dear," she said; and David, drowsily obedient, murmured good- night. A minute later they heard him climbing up-stairs.

Helena turned dumb eyes towards the silent figure on the hearth-rug, but he would not look at her. Under his breath he said one incredulous and tragic word:

"_You?_"

Then he looked at her.

And at his look she hid her face in her bent arm. That new sensation, that cleansing fire of shame, swept over her again with its intolerable scorch.

"No! No! I am going to be married; I--"

The front door closed behind him. Helena, alone, crouched, sobbing, on the floor.

_But the Lord was not in the fire._

CHAPTER XXVII

"Is old Mr. Wright worse?" Martha called downstairs, when the doctor let himself in at midnight.

"No."

"Well, where on earth have you been?" Mrs. King demanded. She was leaning over the banisters in her gray flannel dressing-gown, her candle in its hooded candlestick, throwing a flickering light on her square, anxious face.

William, locking the front door, made no answer. Martha hesitated, and then came down-stairs.

"I must say, William, flatly and frankly, that you--" she paused. "You look tired out, w.i.l.l.y?"

William, fumbling with the guard-chain, was silent.

"Come into the dining-room and I'll get you something to eat," said his wife.

"I don't want anything to eat."

Martha glanced at him keenly. His face was white and haggard, and though he looked at her, he did not seem to see her; when she said again something about food, he made no answer. "Why, William!" she said in a frightened voice. Then with quick common sense, she put her alarm behind her. "Come up-stairs, and go to bed. A good night's sleep will make a new man of you." And in a sort of cheerful silence, she pushed him along in front of her. She asked no more questions, but just as he got into bed she brought him a steaming tumbler of whiskey and water. "I guess you have taken a little cold, my dear," she said.

William looked at her dumbly; then realizing that there was no escape, drank his whiskey, while Martha, her candle in one capable hand, waited to make sure that he drained the last drop. When he gave the gla.s.s back to her, she touched his shoulder gently and bade him go to sleep. As she turned away, he caught that capable hand and held it in both of his for a moment.

"Martha," he said, "I beg your pardon."

"Oh, well," said Martha, "of course, a doctor often has to be out late. If you only don't come down with a cold on your lungs, it's all right."

"I sha'n't come down with a cold on my lungs," said William King.

The letter Helena wrote Lloyd Pryor after she had picked herself up, sobbing, from the floor, had no diplomacy about it. Things had happened; she would not go into them now, she said, but things had happened which made her feel that she must accept his offer to carry out their original plan. "When I got your letter, last week, I did hesitate," she wrote, "because I could not help seeing that you did not feel about it as you used to. But I can't hesitate any longer. I must ask you--"