your feeling, whatever it is, go farther."

And in a direct, plain way, as she had always talked with her children,
Esther told Helen what Bauer had told her.

When she finished, the girl was silent so long, that her mother began to
fear again, that deadening fear she had experienced of late whenever she
had come to realise the girl's infatuation for the luxurious life. But
Esther was not prepared for the question Helen asked when she broke her
long silence.

"How did you come to know all this, mother? How do you know it is true?"

It was Esther's turn to be silent. If she told Helen that her source of
information was Bauer, the girl might reasonably put it down as due to
the jealousy of a rival, and so question its reliability. As a matter of
fact, at that very moment, Van Shaw's parting words were in Helen's
memory, "Don't believe all the stories you may hear about me."

"Mr. Bauer told me," said Esther slowly. "He knew the facts. They are
known to others at Burrton. His only motive was to save you the------"

"He might spare himself the trouble," said Helen, sharply. "I can't help
thinking he is interfering in my affairs and especially in Mr. Van
Shaw's."

"He certainly interfered in his affairs when he saved his life
to-night," said Esther quietly, and the words smote Helen almost like a
blow. For she realised for the first time that night that her sympathy
and imagination had been exercised almost wholly for Van Shaw, broken
and bruised in that awful fall over the cliff. "Saved his life!" Bauer
had done that! After telling her mother the story she had just heard! It
was a most wonderful thing to do, as Elijah Clifford had said in his
narrative out there a little while ago. And yet, and yet, she heard
herself saying to her mother the next moment:

"It seems strange that Mr. Bauer should tell you this. It doesn't seem
possible. I can't believe it!"

At that, Esther could not suppress a heart cry so full of agony that
Helen was terrified.

"Mother! mother!" was all she could say. But Esther quickly calmed
herself.

"Helen, if this young man should be unworthy of you, could you give
yourself to him simply because he had money to offer?"

"No, no, mother, I am not wicked like that. You must not think so. I
could not help questioning Mr. Bauer's statements. He is not
altogether------" she could not say the word "disinterested," and her
mother said it for her.

"But he knows how hopeless his case is. He i