.

To an artist, the figures of these two women, each so intensely
interested in the other, and each possessed of a distinctive and
impressive personality, would have been full of striking suggestions.
Helen, in her loose gown of a soft dusky orange hue, and with no harsher
light thrown upon her features than the subdued glow of a shaded lamp,
and occasional flashes of the firelight which gleamed in her
too-brilliant eyes, seemed to have lost none of her beauty. All her
surroundings, too, went to enhance it: the delicately-toned richness of
the coloring around, the faintly perfumed air, the indefinable
suggestion of feminine daintiness, so apparent in all the appointments
of the little chamber. From the semi-darkness of her position near the
door Helen's visitor brought her eager scrutiny to an end. She advanced
a little into the room and spoke.

"You are Helen Thurwell?" she said softly. "Sir Allan Beaumerville has
bidden me come to you. You have read his note?"

"Yes, yes, I have read it," she answered quickly. "He tells me that you
have news--news that concerns Bernard Maddison. Is it anything that will
prove his innocence?"

"It is already proved."

Helen gave a great cry and sank into a low chair. She had no doubts;
her visitor's tone and manner forbade them. But the tension of her
feelings, strung to such a pitch of nervousness, gave way all at once.
Her whole frame was shaken with passionate sobs. The burning agony of
her grief was dissolved in melting tears.

And the woman whose glad tidings had brought this change stood all the
while patient and motionless. Once, when Helen had first yielded to her
emotion, she had made a sudden movement forward, and a sweet,
sympathetic light had flashed for a moment over her pale features. But
something had seemed to restrain her, some chilling memory which had
checked her first impulse, and made her resume her former attitude of
quiet reserve. She stood there and waited. By and by Helen looked up and
started to her feet.

"I had almost forgotten; I am so sorry," she said. "Do sit down, please,
and tell me everything, and who you are. You have brought me the best
news I ever had in my life," she added with a little burst of gratitude.

Her visitor remained standing--remained grave, silent, and unresponsive;
yet there was nothing forbidding about her appearance. Looking into her
soft gray eyes and face still beautiful, though wrinkled and colorless,
Helen was conscio