ngthen into
purpose to leave those hands undisturbed in their silent accusation. She
might see, and, moved by the coincidence, tremble at her treatment of
Helena.

"But if this happened--if she saw and trembled--she gave no sign. The
works were started up by some other hand, and the incident passed.
But it left me with an idea. That clock soon had a way of stopping and
always at that one instant of time. She was forced at length to notice
it, and I remember, an occasion when she stood stock-still with her eyes
on those hands, and failed to find the banister with her hand, though
she groped for it in her frantic need for support.

"But no command came from her to remove the worn-out piece, and soon its
tricks, and every lesser thing, were forgotten in the crushing calamity
which befell us in the sickness and death of little Richard.

"Oh, those days and nights! And oh, the face of the mother when the
doctors told her that the case was hopeless! I asked myself then, and I
have asked myself a hundred times since, which of all the emotions I saw
pictured there bit the deepest, and made the most lasting impression
on her guilty heart? Was it remorse? If so, she showed no change in her
attitude towards Helena, unless it was by an added bitterness. The sweet
looks and gentle ways of Frank's young daughter could not win against a
hate sharpened by disappointment. Useless for me to hope for it. Release
from the remorse of years was not to come in that way. As I realized
this, I grew desperate and resorted again to the old trick of stopping
the clock at the fatal hour. This time her guilty heart responded. She
acknowledged the stab and let all her miseries appear. But how? In a way
to wring my heart almost to madness, and not benefit the child at all.
She had her first stroke that night. I had made her a helpless invalid.

"That was eight years ago, and since then what? Stagnation. She lived
with her memories, and I with mine. Helena only had a right to hope,
and hope perhaps she did, till--Is that the great clock talking? Listen!
They all talk, but I heed only the one. What does it say? Tell! tell!
tell! Does it think I will be silent now when I come to my own guilt?
That I will seek to hide my weakness when I could not hide her sin?"

"Explain!" It was Violet speaking, and her tone was stern in its
command. "Of what guilt do you speak? Not of guilt towards Helena; you
pitied her too much--"

"But I pitied my dear madam mo