et you speak
to-night because it was better, it was even necessary that I should do
so at once--because this could not go on--because you must go away
and--"

"Necessary?" he repeated. "I--I do not understand."

"No," she said helplessly; "you do not understand--and I--I cannot
explain. Oh, I do not know what to say to you, only that you must take
what I say, as you have taken me--at face value."

"I do not understand," he said again. "Helena, I do not understand. Are
you in trouble--tell me?"

"No," she said.

"But I cannot go away like this!" he cried out suddenly. "I cannot go
and leave you, Helena. You have come into my life and filled it; and I
cannot let you pass out of it--like this--without an effort to hold what
has come to mean everything to me now. You may not love me now, but some
day--"

She shook her head, interrupting him once more.

"There can never be a 'some day,'" she said. "Oh, I do not want to hurt
you--you, to whom I owe more than you will ever know--but--but there can
never be anything between us, and--and we are only making it harder for
ourselves now--aren't we?"

And then he leaned abruptly toward her.

"Is there--some one else?" he asked in a strained voice.

And to Helena the question came as though it had been an inspiration
given him--for after that he would ask no more, seek no more to
understand, for he was too big and strong and fine for that; and even if
it was hopeless now this love that she had known for Madison, even if it
could never be again, still that love was hers, and she could answer
truthfully.

"Yes," she said beneath her breath.

For a moment Thornton neither moved nor spoke. Then he held out his
hand.

"Miss Vail," he said simply, "will you tell this 'some one else' that
another man beside himself is the better for having known you.
Good-night. And may God bring you happiness through all your life."

But she did not speak--they were standing by the rustic bench and she
sank down upon it, and, with her head hidden in one arm outflung across
the back of the seat, was sobbing softly.

And he stood and watched her for a little space, his face grave and
white; then taking the hand that lay listlessly in her lap, he raised it
to his lips--and turned away.

And so he left her--and so, because of this, he knocked upon another
door that night, and all unwittingly gave to that "some one else"
himself the message that he had asked Helena to deliver.

Madison,