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 memory of herself standing here and saying to him 'I'm a broken-hearted woman.' And she knew that Franklin was seeing in her face the same memories, and that, with his intuitive insight where things of the heart were concerned, he was linking them with the silent figure at the window.

'I suppose,' he said, going to the fire and standing before it, his back to the others, 'I suppose I can't help to elucidate things a little.'

'No, I think they are quite clear,' said Helen, 'or, at all events, you put an end to them by staying; especially'—and she fixed her gaze on the figure at the window—'as Gerald is going now.'

But Gerald did not move and Franklin presently remarked, 'Sometimes, you know, a third person can see things in another way and help things out. If you could just, for instance, talk the matter over quietly, before me, as a sort of adviser, you know. That might help. It's a pity for old friends to quarrel.'

Gerald turned from the window at this. He had come down from the heights and knew that he had risen there too lightly, and that the tangles of lower realities must be unravelled before he could be free to mount again—Helen with him. He knew, at last, that he had made Helen very angry and that it might take some time to disentangle things; but the radiance of the heights was with him still, and if, to Helen's eye, he looked fatuous, to Franklin, seeing his face now, for the first time, he looked radiant.

'Helen,' he said, smiling gravely at her, 'what Kane says is very sensible. He is the one person in the world one could have such things out before. Let's have them out; let's put the case to him and he shall be umpire.'

Helen bent her ironic and implacable gaze upon him and remained silent.

'You think I've no right to put it before him, I suppose.'

'You most certainly have no right. And you would gain nothing by it. What I told you just now was true.'

'I can't accept that.'

'Then you are absurd.'

'Very well, I am absurd, then. But there's one thing I have a right to tell Kane,' Gerald went on, unsmiling now. 'I owe it to him to tell him. He'll think badly of me, I know; but that can't be helped. We've all got into a dreadful muddle and the only way out of it is to be frank. So I must tell you, Kane, that Althea and I have found out that we have made a mistake; we can't hit it off. I'm not the man to make her happy and she feels it, I'm sure she feels it. It's only for my sake, I know, that she hasn't broken off long ago. You are in love with Althea, and I am in love with Helen; so there it is. I'm only saying what we are all seeing.' Gerald spoke gravely, yet at the same time with a certain blitheness, as though he took it for granted, for Franklin as well as for himself, that he thus made both their paths clear and left any hazardous element in their situations the same for both. Would Althea have Franklin and would Helen have him? This was really all that now needed elucidation.

A heavy silence followed his words. In the silence the impression that came to Gerald was as if one threw reconnoitring pebbles into a well, expecting a swift response of shallowness, and heard instead, after a wondering pause, the hollow reverberations of sombre, undreamed-of depths. Franklin's eyes were on him and Helen's eyes were on him, and he knew that in both their eyes he had proved himself once more, to say the least of it, absurd.

'Mr. Digby,' said Franklin Kane, and his voice was so strange that it sounded indeed like the fall of the stone in far-off darkness, 'perhaps you are saying what we all see; but perhaps we don't all see the same things in the same way; perhaps,' Franklin went on, finding his way, 'you don't even see some things at all.'

Gerald had flushed. 'I know I'm behaving caddishly. I've no right to say anything until I see Althea.'

'Well, perhaps not,' Franklin conceded.

'But, you know,' said Gerald, groping too, 'it's not as if it were really sudden—the Althea side of it, I mean. We've not hit it off at all. I've disappointed her frightfully; it will be a relief to her, I know—to hear'—Gerald stammered a little—'that I see now, as clearly as she does, that we couldn't be happy together. Of course,' and he grew still more red, 'it will be she who throws me over. And—I think I'd better go to her at once.'

'Wait, Gerald,' said Helen.

He paused in his precipitate dash to the door. Only her gaze, till now, had told of the chaos within her; but when Gerald said that he was going to Althea, she found words. 'Wait a moment. I don't think that you understand. I don't think, as Franklin says, that you see some things at all. Do you realise what you are doing?'

Gerald stood, his hand on the door knob, and looked at her. 'Yes; I realise it perfectly.'

'Do you realise that it will not change me and that I think you are behaving outrageously?'

'Even if it won't change you I'd have to do it now. I can't marry another woman when I'm in love with you.'

'Can't you? When you know that you can never marry me?'

'Even if I know that,' said Gerald, staring at her and, with his deepening sense of complications, looking, for him, almost stern.

'Well, know it; once for all.'

'That you won't ever forgive me?' Gerald questioned.

'Put it like that if you like to,' she answered.

Gerald turned again to go, and it was now Franklin who checked him.

'Mr. Digby—wait,' he said; 'Helen—wait.' He had been looking at them both while they interchanged their hostilities, and yet, though watching them, he had been absent, as though he were watching something else even more. 'What I mean, what I want to say, is this——' he rather stammered. 'Don't please go to Althea directly. I'm to go to her this evening. She asked me to come and see her at six.' He pulled out his watch. 'It's five now. Will you wait? Will you wait till this evening, please?'

Gerald again had deeply flushed. 'Of course, if you ask it. Only I do feel that I ought to see her, you know,' he paused, perplexed. Then, as he looked at Franklin Kane, something came to him. The cloud of his oppression seemed to pass from his face and it was once more illuminated, not with blitheness, but with recognition. He saw, he thought he saw, the way Franklin opened for them all. And his words expressed the dazzled relief of that vision. 'I see,' he said, gazing on at Franklin, 'yes, I see. Yes, if you can manage that it will be splendid of you, Kane.' Flooded with the hope of swift elucidation he seized the other's hand while he went on. 'It's been such a dreadful mess. Do forgive me. You must; you will, won't you? It may mean happiness for you, even though Helen says it can't for me. I do wish you all good fortune. And—I'll be at my club until I hear from you. And I can't say how I thank you.' With this, incoherently and rapidly pronounced, Gerald was gone and Franklin and Helen were left standing before each other.

For a long time they did not speak, but Franklin's silence seemed caused by no embarrassment. He still looked perplexed, but, through his perplexity, he looked intent, as though tracing in greater and greater clearness the path before him—the path that Gerald had seen that he was opening and that might, Gerald had said, mean happiness to them all. It was Helen watching him who felt a cruel embarrassment. She saw Franklin sacrificed and she saw herself unable to save him. It would not save him to tell him again that she would never marry Gerald. Franklin knew, too clearly for any evasion, that Althea's was the desperate case, the case for succour. She, Helen, could be thrown over—for they couldn't evade that aspect—and suffer never a scratch; but for Althea to throw over Gerald meant that in doing it she must tear her heart to pieces.

And she could not save Franklin by telling him that she had divined his love for her; that would give him all the more reason for ridding her of a husband who hadn't kept to the spirit of their contract. No, the only way to have saved him would have been to love him and to make him know and feel it; and this was the only thing she could not do for Franklin.

She took refuge in her nearest feeling, that of scorn for Gerald. 'It's unforgivable of Gerald,' she said.

Franklin's eyes—they had a deepened, ravaged look, but they were still calm—probed hers, all their intentness now for her. 'Why, no,' he said, after a moment, 'I don't see that.'

Helen, turning away, had dropped into her chair, leaning her forehead on her hand. 'I shall never forgive him,' she said.

Franklin, on the other side of the fire, stood thinking, thinking so hard that he was not allowing himself to feel. He was thinking so hard of Helen that he was unconscious how the question he now asked might affect himself. 'You do love him, Helen? It's him you've always loved?'

'Always,' she said.

'And he's found it out—only to-day.'

'He didn't find it out; I told him. He came to reproach me for my engagement.'

Franklin turned it over. 'But what he has found out, then, is that he loves you.'

'So he imagines. It's not a valuable gift, as you see, Gerald's love.'

Again Franklin paused and she knew that, for her sake, he was weighing the value of Gerald's love. And he found in answer to what she said his former words: 'Why, no, I don't see that,' he said.

'I'm afraid it's all I do see,' Helen replied.

He looked down upon her and after a silence he asked: 'May I say something?'

She nodded, resting her face in her hands.

'You're wrong, you know,' said Franklin. 'Not wrong in feeling this way now; I don't believe you can help that; but in deciding to go on feeling it. You mustn't talk about final decisions.'

'But they are made.'

'They can't be made in life. Life unmakes them, I mean, unless you set yourself against it and ruin things that might be mended.'

'I'm afraid I can't take things as you do,' said Helen. 'Some things are ruined from the very beginning.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin; 'at all events some things aren't. And you're wrong about this thing, I'm sure of it. You're hard and you're proud, and you set yourself against life and won't let it work on you. The only way to get anything worth while out of life is to be humble with it and be willing to let it lead you, I do assure you, Helen.'

Suddenly, her face hidden in her hands, she began to cry.

'He is spoiled for me. Everything is spoiled for me,' she sobbed. 'I'd rather be proud and miserable than humiliated. Who wants a joy that is spoiled? Some things can't be joys if they come too late.'

She wept, and in the silence between them knew only her own sorrow and the bitterness of the desecration that had been wrought in her own love. Then, dimly, through her tears, she heard Franklin's voice, and heard that it trembled.

'I think they can, Helen,' he said. 'I think it's wonderful the way joy can grow if we don't set ourselves against life. I'm going to try to make it grow'—how his poor voice trembled, she was drawn from her own grief in hearing it—'and I wish I could leave you believing that you were going to try too.'

She put down her hands and lifted her strange, tear-stained face.

'You are going to Althea.'

'Yes,' said Franklin, and he smiled gently at her.

'You are going to ask her to marry you before she can know that Gerald is giving her up.'

He paused for a moment. 'I'm going to see if she needs me.'

Helen gazed at him. She couldn't see joy growing, but she saw a determination that, in its sudden strength, was almost a joy.

'And—if she doesn't need you, Franklin?'

'Ah, well,' said Franklin, continuing to smile rather fixedly, 'I've stood that, you see, for a good many years.'

Helen rose and came beside him. 'Franklin,' she said, and she took his hand, 'if she doesn't have you—you'll come back.'

'Come back?' he questioned, and she saw that all his hardly held fortitude was shaken by his wonder.

'To me,' said Helen. 'You'll marry me, if Althea won't have you. Even if she does—I'm not going to marry Gerald. So don't go to her with any mistaken ideas about me.'

He was very pale, holding her hand fast, as it held his. 'You mean—you hate him so much—for never having seen—that you'll go through with it—to punish him.'

She shook her head. 'No, I'm not so bad as that. It won't be for revenge. It will be for you—and for myself, too; because I'd rather have it so; I'd rather have you, Franklin, than the ruined thing.'

She knew that it was final and supreme temptation that she put before him, and she held it there resolved, so that if there were one chance for him he should have it. She knew that she would stand by what she said. Franklin was her pride and Gerald her humiliation; she would never accept humiliation; and though she could see Franklin go without a qualm, she could, she saw it clearly, have a welcome for him nearly as deep as love's, if he came back to her. And what she hoped, quite selflessly, was that the temptation would suffice; that he would not go to Althea. She looked into his face, and she saw that he was tormented.

'But, Helen,' he said, 'the man you love loves you; doesn't that settle everything?'

She shook her head again. 'It settles nothing. I told you that I was a woman with a broken heart. It's not mended; it never can be mended.'

'But, Helen,' he said, and a pitiful smile of supplication dawned on his ravaged little face, 'that's where you're so wrong. You've got to let it soften and then it will have to mend. It's the hard hearts that get broken.'

'Well, mine is hard.'

'Let it melt, Helen,' he pleaded with her, 'please let it melt. Please let yourself be happy, dear Helen.'

But still she shook her head, looking deeply at him, and in the negation, in the look, it was as if she held her cup of magic steadily before him. She was there, for him, if he would have her. She kept him to his word for his sake; but she kept him to his word for hers, too. Yes, he saw that though it was for his sake, it was not for his alone—there was the final magic—that her eyes met his in that long, clear look. It was the nearest he would ever come to Helen; it was the most she could ever do for him; and, with a pang, deep and piercing, he felt all that it meant, and felt his love of her avowed in his own eyes, and recognised, received in hers. Helplessly, now, he looked at her, his lips pressed together so that they should not show their trembling, and only a little muscle in his cheek quivering irrepressibly. And he faltered: 'Helen—you could never love me back.'

'Not in that way,' said Helen. She was grave and clear; she had not a hesitation. 'But that way is ruined and over for me. I could live for you, though. I could make it worth your while.'

He looked, and he could say nothing. Against his need of Helen he must measure Althea's need of him. He must measure, too—ah, cruel perplexity—the chance for Helen's happiness. She was unhesitating; but how could she know herself so inflexible, how could she know that the hard heart might not melt? For the sake of Helen's happiness he must measure not only Gerald's need of her against his own and Gerald's power against his own mere pitifulness, but he must wonder, in an agony of sudden surmise, which, in the long-run, could give her most, the loved or the unloved man. In all his life no moment had ever equalled this in its fulness, and its intensity, and its pain. It thundered, it rushed, it darkened—like the moment of death by drowning and like the great river that bears away the drowning man. Memories flashed in it, broken and vivid—of Althea's eyes and Helen's smile; Althea so appealing, Helen so strong; and, incongruous in its remoteness, a memory of the bleak, shabby little street in a Boston suburb, the small wooden house painted brown, where he was born, where scanty nasturtiums flowered on the fence in summer, and in winter, by the light of a lamp with a ground glass shade, his mother's face, careful, worn, and gentle, bent over the family mending. Where, indeed, had the river borne him, and what had been done to him?

Helen's voice came to him, and Helen's face reshaped itself—a strange and lovely beacon over the engulfing waters. She saw his torment and she understood. 'Go to her if you must,' she said; 'and I know that you must. But don't go with mistaken ideas. Remember what I tell you. Nothing is changed—for me, or in me. If Althea doesn't want you back—or if Althea does want you back—I shall be waiting.' And, seeing his extremity, Helen, grave and clear, filled her cup of magic to the brim. As she had said that morning, she said now—but with what a difference: 'Kiss me good-bye, Franklin.'

He could not move towards her; he could not kiss her; but, smiling more tenderly than he could have thought Helen would ever smile, she put her arms around him and drew his rapt, transfigured face to hers. And holding him tenderly, she kissed him and said: 'Whatever happens—you've had the best of me.'