tly, thrust him away with all her strength, and
though blissfully aware only of his own interpretation, Gerald half
released her, keeping her only by his clasp of her wrists.

His kiss had confirmed her incredible suspicion. 'You insult me!' she
said. 'And after what I told you! What intolerable assumption! What
intolerable arrogance! What baseness!'

Her eyes seemed to burn their eyelids; her face was transformed in its
wild, blanched indignation.

'But I love you,' said Gerald, and he looked at her with a candour of
conviction too deep for pleading.

'You love me!' Helen repeated. She could have wept for sheer fury and
humiliation had not her scornful concentration on him been too intent to
admit the flooding image of herself--mocked and abased by this
travesty--which might have brought the fears. 'I think that you are
mad.'

'But I do love you,' Gerald reiterated. 'I've been mad, if you like; but
I'm quite sane now.'

'You are a simpleton,' was Helen's reply; she could find no other word
for his fatuity.

'Be as cruel as you like; I know I deserve it,' said Gerald.

'You imagine I'm punishing you?'

'I don't imagine anything, or see anything, Helen, except that we love
each other and that you've got to marry me.'

Helen looked deeply into his eyes, deeply and, he saw it at last,
implacably. 'If your last chance hadn't been gone, can you believe that
I would ever have told you? Your last chance is gone. I will never marry
you.' And hearing steps outside, she twisted her hands from his, saying,
'Think of appearances, please. Here is Franklin.'

CHAPTER XXVII.

Gerald was standing at the window looking out when Franklin entered, and
Helen, in the place where he had left her, met the gaze of her affianced
with a firm and sombre look. There was a moment of silence while
Franklin stood near the door, turning a hesitant glance from Gerald's
back to Helen's face, and then Helen said, 'Gerald and I have been
quarrelling.'

Franklin, feeling his way, tried to smile. 'Well, that's too bad,' he
said. He looked at her for another silent moment before adding, 'Do you
want to go on? Am I in the way?'

'No, I don't want to go on, and you are very welcome,' Helen answered.
Her eyes were fixed on Franklin and she wondered at her own
self-command, for, in his eyes, so troubled and so kindly, she seemed to
see mutual memories; the memory of herself lying in the wood and saying
'I'm sick to death of it'; the me