"It is a mighty good thing that I am." Armstrong spoke with emphasis.

"For the time being, no doubt; but soon you will be able to return to it."

"I shall never return to it."

Helen looked up quickly. Armstrong's words were spoken so forcibly that they startled her.

"You must go back to it," she replied, with equal emphasis; "it is your life, and you must go back."

"I have pa.s.sed through the experience once and for all time."

Helen found it difficult not to be affected by the convincing tone.

"I have made more mistakes than you know of."

"In your work, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"But this is only the first draft; you can easily correct them."

"They could be more easily corrected in the book than where they are."

"I don't understand."

"The mistakes are in me!" Armstrong cried. "I am no humanist; I am an impostor!"

"Jack! Jack!" Helen was really alarmed. "You are putting too much of a tax upon yourself. Remember, you are not well yet."

"I am worse than an impostor," Armstrong continued, excitedly, refusing to be checked: "I am a traitor to the very cause I set myself to further! I have been false in my duty to it, as I have been in my obligations to you."

"That is just the point," Helen interrupted. "I absolved you of your obligations to me weeks ago, so that part of it is all settled."

"But I did not absolve myself. I don't understand what I did or why I did it. Day by day I felt myself slipping further and further away from you. I was not strong enough to appreciate what was taking place, and was powerless to resist."

"But I understood it even then," Helen continued. "I recognized that our marriage was the first mistake, and decided that I would do my part toward remedying the error with as little pain as possible."

"Our marriage was no mistake, except my own unfitness to be your husband!" Armstrong cried, bitterly.

"Don't, Jack," Helen again pleaded. "You see, I have had a much longer time to think the matter out."

"I was all right until I came under the influence, which completely changed me, just as you told me it did, time and again. Then, instead of being developed by it as I should have been, I a.s.similated nothing but its limitations and began to go backward."

"You must have a.s.similated far more than that," Helen insisted, "for your personal development through it all has been tremendous. Otherwise this could not be."

"Listen, Helen." Armstrong was desperate. "Let me tell you how far down I have gone. You know how eager I was, when we first came, to accomplish some great achievement. You know how much I admired the works and personalities of those grand old characters of whom you have so often heard me speak. Well, I took up my work. I studied these characters, I wrote about them, I tried to a.s.similate their principles and to express them in words. At length the work was finished. Cerini praised it, and I felt that I had proved myself equal to the undertaking."

"And so you had," Helen interrupted. "Cerini told me so himself."

"Cerini knows nothing of how ignominiously I failed to apply these principles to myself. He has read the n.o.ble plat.i.tudes with which my book is filled; you have experienced the unworthy personal expressions as they have appeared in my every-day life."

"But you have said yourself that you could not help it."

"I should have been able to; that is where I showed my utter unfitness for the undertaking. Now do you understand?"

"Yes, Jack," Helen replied, slowly, after a moment's pause, "I think I do understand; but I also think that my understanding is clearer than yours."

"Does it not enable you to forgive me for it all?"

"Yes--I have already told you that. What you have said is exactly what I knew you must say when you had been long enough away from your work. I have never felt this influence of which you have so often spoken, but I have recognized its strength by what I have seen. I do not mean that you need necessarily continue in your present intensity, but I do mean that whether you recognize it or not this second nature is your real self."

"But I tell you that I have no further interest in my work."

"You think so, Jack, but you have been away from it for weeks. Perhaps by returning home you could smother your love of it for a long time, but it would be there just the same. And without it you could never express your own individuality."

"I would, at least, be the self you knew before we came here."

"Yes, but only that. With all the pain, Jack, I have not been blind to what it has done for you. With all the misapplication of the principles which you mention you have gained so much that you could never be the old self again. I could not respect you if you did. Surely it would not be following the teachings of these grand spirits were you to live a life below the standard which you have shown yourself capable of maintaining."

"Then let us live that life together, Helen," Armstrong begged; "let us begin all over again, taking my mistakes as guiding-posts to keep us from the dangers against which I have not been strong enough, alone, to guard myself."

"Oh, Jack!" Helen withdrew her hands and pressed them against her tired temples. "Don't you see that this is simply repeating the mistake which has caused all our trouble? Now, at this moment, we are to each other just what we were when we became engaged, forgetful of all that has occurred since. Why not recognize things as they really are, and spare ourselves the added sorrow which must surely come?"

"Can you not forgive what has happened since?"

"I have forgiven all that there is to forgive; but I can't forget the knowledge that has come to me."

"What knowledge is there which refuses to be forgotten?"

"A knowledge of your real self, Jack--and that self has never belonged to me. It is as distinct and separate as if it were that of another man.

It has been developed apart from me; it is of such a nature that I cannot become a part of it."

"You are so great a part of it already, dear, that you could not sever yourself from it."

"No, Jack. It is your loyalty, your sense of duty, that is speaking now.

Or perhaps you are far enough away from what has happened not to see it as clearly as I do. You have become a part of another life, and your future belongs to that life and to the woman who has also become a part of it."

"You can't mean this, Helen. Think what you are saying!"

"I do mean it, just as I meant it when I said so before, when you failed to comprehend. It is Inez who must be your companion in this new life."

Armstrong did not remonstrate, as he had done before. It was impossible to misunderstand the conviction in Helen's voice. He could no longer attribute it to jealousy or to caprice; he could no longer fail to understand the meaning of her words.

"I have fully deserved all this," he said, at length. "When you first told me of Miss Thayer's feeling toward me I did not--I could not--believe it. Never once, during all the hours we were together, was there anything to confirm what you said."

"You did not notice this any more than you noticed other things which happened, Jack; you were too completely absorbed. But that does not alter the fact, does it?"

"No; the fact remains the same. It has only been since the accident that I have realized it; and this is one of the two problems which I have to straighten out."