Inez waited for him to continue.

"She believes that you and I are foreordained for each other," Armstrong said, bluntly, "and she proposes to step aside to make the realization of this possible."

The girl gazed at her companion in silent amazement. So this was the cause of Helen's suffering--this was the price she was willing to pay as a tribute to her friendship for her and her love for her husband!

"The brave, brave girl!" Inez cried, almost overcome by her emotion. "I must make her understand that the Jack Armstrong I loved was killed at the foot of the hill of Settignano. Dear, dear Helen! it is now my privilege to give her back her happiness as she gave me back mine!"

x.x.xI

It had been to Uncle Peabody that Helen had turned during all this period, but it was for comfort and strength rather than for advice. The problem was hers, and she alone must finally solve it. She had thought it settled until her conversation with Jack, which caused a momentary wavering. She repeated Armstrong's words to Uncle Peabody, and his absolute conviction that her husband's present att.i.tude was a normal and final expression encouraged her to question whether there might not be some other solution than the one upon which she had determined. Still, it was only a questioning; as yet she was unprepared to share Uncle Peabody's conviction.

"Don't lean too far backward," he had said to her, "in your efforts to stand by your principles. I have seen things which were called principles at first become tyrants and do damage out of all proportion to the good they would have done had the conditions not changed."

"It is the conditions I am watching, uncle," Helen had replied. "I have no 'principles,' as you call them, which will not joyfully yield themselves. I must not--I will not--stand in the way either of Jack's happiness or of his development. If I can make myself see any way by which we can stay together without accomplishing one or the other of these mistakes, G.o.d knows how eagerly I will again pick up the thread of life."

Uncle Peabody had folded her in his great arms again, as he had done so many times lately.

"People have sometimes told me that I am a philosopher," he said, huskily. "They have seen me meet death in a dear friend, or even one closer to me, with calmness, sending the departed spirit a wireless 'bon-voyage' message and considering the incident as fortunate, as if he had received a promotion. But when I see one as dear to me as you are, gasping for breath in what has seemed to be a hopeless and prolonged struggle for that life which love alone can give you, I must confess that my stock of philosophy, such as it is, seems sadly inadequate."

Now had come the necessity of repeating to him what the contessa had said, which gave Helen double pain, knowing, as she did, how much relief her last conversation had given him.

"I can't believe it, Helen," Uncle Peabody said, decisively. "Whatever else one may say of Jack Armstrong, he is honest, and I can't believe him insincere in what he said to you."

"It is not insincerity, dear," she replied, wearily. "He is trying to deceive himself.--What is it, Annetta?" she asked, almost petulantly, of the maid as she approached.

"Monsignor Cerini--" began the maid.

"Mr. Armstrong is on the veranda," Helen interrupted.

"But he asks for the madama."

"For me?" Helen was incredulous. "Show him out here, Annetta."

The librarian's face beamed genially as he greeted her and Uncle Peabody.

"Has the maid not made a mistake?" Helen asked. "Is it not our invalid whom you wish to see?"

"No, my daughter, it is you whom I seek. I have come to make a full though long-delayed acknowledgment."

Helen glanced over to Uncle Peabody, thoroughly mystified.

"Your husband and I were talking of you yesterday," he continued, "and we both are deeply concerned to find how erroneous have been our estimates and how slow we have been to recognize the truth."

So Jack had sent him to plead his cause, Helen told herself, and in her heart she resented the interference. It was unlike him to intrust so important a matter as this to another, yet perhaps it was a further evidence of the new conditions.

"Shall I not leave you to yourselves?" queried Uncle Peabody.

"By no means!" Cerini cried, hastily. "It is most fitting that you should hear what I am about to say. Do you remember the first day I met you at the library?" he continued, addressing his question to Helen.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and an involuntary shadow of pain pa.s.sed over her face as she replied, quietly:

"Do you think I could ever forget it?"

Cerini saw it all, and it touched him deeply. "I was unkind to you that day, my daughter--even cruel. I thought I understood, but later events have shown me that my judgment led me far astray."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SO JACK HAD SENT HIM TO PLEAD HIS CAUSE, HELEN TOLD HERSELF; AND IN HER HEART SHE RESENTED THE INTERFERENCE]

The old man had come to a realization at last! This, at all events, was a comfort to her.

"Only in part," she replied, trying to speak cheerfully. "The character-building was going on just as you said."

"It was," Cerini said, forcefully--"to a greater extent, I believe, than any one of us knew. My only excuse is that I was possessed with a preconceived idea--the very thing which I so much object to in others."

"I don't think I quite understand," Helen replied. "Do you mean that, after all his efforts, my husband is right in his conviction that his work has been a failure?"

"It is not of your husband that I am thinking now," the librarian answered; "it is of myself--and you."

"Of me?" Helen was genuinely surprised. "But I have never entered into the consideration at all, where the work at the library was concerned."

"You should have done so; that is just the point."

"I wanted to," Helen cried; "but you told me that I was quite incapable of doing so."

"I know I did," replied the librarian, bowing his head; "and that is where I made my great mistake."

"It would have stopped their work where it was--you said so yourself."

Cerini again bowed his head. "All part of the same mistake," he admitted. "Had I encouraged you at that time you would not only have added much to the work itself, but you would have saved your husband from his own great error. I have been much to blame, my daughter, and you must not hold him responsible for a fault which is really mine."

Helen tried to fathom what was in the old man's mind. She could not question his sincerity, yet his words seemed a mockery. Jack had evidently taken him freely into his confidence, so there was no reason why she should not speak freely.

"Mr. Armstrong has apparently told you how unfortunately his experience has ended in its effect upon our personal relations. Knowing this, I am sure you would not intentionally wound me further by seeking to restore matters to a false basis; yet I can understand your words in no other way. As you said of my husband, that day in the library, this time it is your heart and not your head which finds expression."

The librarian gasped with apprehension. "Daughter! daughter!" he cried, "have I not made myself clear! Then let me do so now before any possible misunderstanding can enter in. I am a humanist by profession--until now I believed myself a modern humanist. When I first knew your husband, he was a youth full of intelligent appreciation of those ancient marvels which I delighted to show him. Imagine my joy, twelve years later, to welcome him again, grown to man's estate, and to find that the early seeds which I had planted within him had sent out roots and tendrils so strong as to hold him firmly in their grasp. Then he brought Miss Thayer to me--at first I took her for you, as she was the kind of woman I had expected him to marry. She entered into his work with him with the same spirit as his own, and my foolish old heart rejoiced that such splendid material had been placed in my hands for the moulding."

"Why repeat all this?" Helen interrupted; "I know it all and accept it all, but what agony to pa.s.s through it still another time!"

"Forgive me, my daughter," Cerini replied, quickly; "we are past the period of your sacrifice now, and have reached the point of your triumph."

"My triumph!" cried Helen, bitterly. "Why do you hurt me so?"

"Patience, dear," Uncle Peabody urged, quietly. "Monsignor Cerini has some purpose in mind which makes this necessary, I am sure."

"I am unfortunate in my presentation," the librarian apologized. "The point I wish to make is that up to the time I met Mrs. Armstrong I had known but one kind of humanism. I myself had studied the master-spirits of the past, and had a.s.similated the principles which they taught. Mr.