Robert"--Mrs. Thornton spoke again--"I am sure he will do as I
have asked him to do about this, but--you can have a great deal of
influence with him. It--it perhaps may seem a strange thing to say, but
I pray that you two may be brought very close to each other. Robert
needs a good, true woman so much in his life--and I--we--we--my
illness--we have never had a home in its truest sense. Yes, it is
strange for me perhaps to talk like this--but it is in my heart. I would
like to think of you both engaged in this wonderful work together."

Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton stopped--and Helena, from
gazing at the other's pallid countenance in a sort of involuntary,
frightened fascination, dropped her head suddenly upon the bed-spread
and hid her face.

Mrs. Thornton's hand found Helena's head and rested upon it.

"I would like to see Robert happy," she murmured, after a little
silence. "Riches do not make happiness--they are so sad and empty a
thing when the heart is empty. I know he would be happy with you--he has
spoken so much of you lately--perhaps--perhaps--"

Mrs. Thornton's voice was very faint--the words reached Helena plainly
enough as words, but they seemed to reach her consciousness in an
unreal, unnatural, blunted way, coma-like--pregnant of significance, yet
with the significance itself elusive, evading her.

"A good woman," whispered Mrs. Thornton, "I have tried to be a good
woman--but--but my life, our wealth, our position has made it so
artificial. You have never known these things, dear--and so you are just
as God made you--good woman, so pure, so wonderful in your freshness and
your innocence. Robert's life has been so barren--so barren. I would
like to know that--that it will not always be so. Oh, if it could only
be that you and he should carry on this great, glad work together--and
love should come into his life--and yours--and sunshine--promise me,
dear, that--"

The voice died away. Helena, with head still buried, waited for Mrs.
Thornton to speak again. It seemed she waited for a great length of
time--and yet there was no such thing as time. It seemed as though she
were transported to a place of great and intense blackness where it was
miserably cold and chill, and she stood alone and lost, and strove to
find her way--and there was no way--only blackness everywhere,
immeasurable. She lifted her head suddenly, desperately, to shake the
unreality from her--and her eyes fell upon the gentle