Many years before the opening of this story the Lawrence children counted among their dearest friends a certain pleasant-faced, sturdy little chap, Guy Appleton by name, who never considered a day quite complete unless at least a part of it was spent at the hospitable manor. His own pretty home, Rose Cottage, lay only a stone's throw away, and there the little Lawrence girls passed many a happy hour. Mrs. Appleton and Mrs. Lawrence had been schoolgirls together, and the flight of years had but strengthened their friendship. Mrs. Appleton was delighted that her shy little son had found such pleasant companions, and in every way encouraged his intercourse with them. The Lawrences were all dear to Guy's boyish heart, but none held quite the same place as Helen. She had been especially kind and friendly to him, and for her his affection was particularly deep and adoring.

The years, as they rolled by, served but to increase his love for his little playmate, and from his allegiance to her he never swerved. When his college days were over and he was about to sail for Europe on an extended tour, he found it impossible to say farewell without speaking to her of the subject which lay nearest his heart.

Helen was very young and inexperienced, and these were the first words of love to which she had ever listened. Her tender heart was deeply touched, and Guy went away gladdened by her shy expression of sorrow at his departure, and by the whispered "Yes" that her lips spoke falteringly.

Helen had accepted her youthful lover, and many were the rejoicings among the small Hetherford circle over what they termed Helen's engagement; although the girl herself looked a little grave over so serious a term. At the manor the new relationship was accepted gladly, for it seemed only a fitting ending to Guy's long friendship in their family.

Three years slipped by; years in which Guy bent every energy to the study of architecture, which he had chosen as his profession. He had decided talent, and by continued assiduity was making a name for himself among his colleagues.

Little change had taken place in Hetherford except such as the flight of time must necessarily bring. Helen was now quite a woman, with a pretty air of gravity which the new cares had lent to her.

When finally, one crisp October day, Guy walked in upon them, his face bronzed by the recent ocean trip, his slender figure grown broad and strong, his blue eyes beaming with happiness, he was welcomed with the greatest warmth of affection, and as they sat about the crackling flames in the manor hall his long absence seemed almost a dream.

It was during the following winter that Helen had her first misgivings as to her real feeling for Guy. Indeed, sometimes, her engagement oppressed her strangely, and she was assailed by an overwhelming longing to be free.

Women are indeed incomprehensible, and when the largess of their love is not given, it is rare, save through some sharp lesson, that they appreciate to the full the men whose hearts they possess. In this Helen was, perhaps, in nowise different from the rest of her sex. Be this as it may, Guy's unchanging love and devotion sometimes wearied her, and failed to call forth an answering love in her own heart. Yet the months glided by, and she had not the courage to tell her lover the truth. She was not always successful in hiding it from him, however, and once or twice a faint suspicion of her indifference came to him.

The summer came and went, and almost a year had drifted by since his return. Guy finally broached the subject of marriage.

At his first words Helen was filled with dismay, and as she listened with down-bent head and averted eyes, Guy was suddenly conscious of a great lack in her love for him, and a sense of foreboding swept over him. To his long and pleading request that a time might be set for their marriage, Helen put forth the children's claim upon her; and when he gently urged her to reconsider her determination, she answered him so sharply and curtly that he yielded, convinced that it would be unwise to press the matter any further.

Helen's lips had almost formed the words "Guy, I do not love you as I should," but her lover's face, pale with grief at her all too evident reluctance, robbed her of the needful courage.

Guy was not a man of half measures, and, having accepted Helen's decision, resolutely put out of his mind his painful doubts, and trusted to the future to strengthen her love for him. She was greatly touched by his generosity and half ashamed of the stand she had taken, and now that the question of marriage was indefinitely postponed, persuaded herself that she was deeply attached to him, and that it would have been both cruel and unwise to have broken her engagement.

In September Guy took his vacation and, his mother having volunteered to go to the mountains with him, he induced Helen to accompany them. She had many qualms of conscience at leaving the children, but the invitation was a tempting one, and she had not the heart to disappoint her lover a second time. So, after strict injunctions to Mary, and urgent entreaties to Jean and Nathalie, she started off.

It was a delightful holiday for all three. Mrs. Appleton, who had no thought for anyone but her son, was overjoyed to see him in such high spirits, for of late she had thought him both sad and depressed; and Guy felt that his happiness was quite complete, for never had he had Helen so much to himself, and never had she been so frankly affectionate and sweet with him. The days glided by like a dream, even to Helen. She had thrust all worry and anxiety from her, and entered with eager interest and zest into all the plans for their pleasant journeyings. If now and then she found herself a bit wearied by Guy's unceasing attentions, she strenuously hid the fact from him and called herself strictly to account for the unworthy thought.

It was at a hotel on the borders of a beautiful lake that Helen first saw Lillian Stuart. One morning Guy had gone off fishing, and as Mrs. Appleton was writing letters in the seclusion of her room, Helen took her book and wandered out into the grounds in search of a cool, shady spot where she could read in peace. Coming at length upon a retired nook, she found herself forestalled, for, comfortably ensconced under the shade of a great willow, was a woman so beautiful that, as Helen caught sight of her, she could scarce repress an exclamation. The girl looked up, and their eyes met. Helen shyly dropped hers and passed quickly on, but that brief glimpse left a vivid impression upon her mind of a well-poised head, crowned with the most wonderful auburn hair, of a face dazzlingly fair, and a pair of deep violet eyes.

All day long Helen's thoughts reverted to this vision, and that afternoon, when Guy returned from his fishing, she gave him a glowing description of her encounter.

Just before dinner, while they were standing together in the corridor, the girl came toward them on her way to the dining room. Helen laid her hand impulsively on her lover's arm.

"Please look, Guy," she whispered. "Here she comes. Isn't she beautiful? Why, Guy," excitedly, "do you know her? She is bowing to you."

"Is that the woman you mean?" he asked, when he had gravely returned her bow.

"Why, yes. Where did you ever know her?"

"I met her at Baden, when I was over there."

"How strange," said Helen musingly. "Why did you never tell me about her?"

"Because I never liked her," he replied with decision, "and I trust you and she will not meet."

A curiously unaccountable feeling of resentment swept across Helen.

"I don't suppose there is much chance of it," she returned coldly.

It is the unexpected that happens; for one afternoon, only a few days later, as Helen stood talking with some friends on the broad hotel veranda, Miss Stuart joined the group and, before Helen had hardly appreciated the situation, an introduction had ensued.

In spite of Guy's protests a friendship sprang up between the two girls. It seemed to him that there was something almost pointed in the way Helen ignored his request, and followed up this acquaintance, to which he had so strenuously objected. Helen was not only fascinated and charmed by Miss Stuart's meteor-like brilliance, but felt, moreover, the keenest annoyance at the masterful way in which Guy had laid his injunctions upon her. He had maintained a strict reticence concerning his reasons, giving her no further explanation than that the friendship ran counter to his wishes. Helen's defiance was aroused, and perhaps a growing sense of ennui in her lover's society increased the temptation to welcome eagerly any new interest.

Meanwhile Miss Stuart had a well-defined motive in trying to secure Helen's friendship, and an even stronger desire to lessen Guy's influence with the girl. Whatever her past acquaintance with Guy had been, it would have been apparent to anyone less easily deceived than Helen, that she bore him no good will.

The rest of the holiday time, which had begun so happily, was spoiled for Guy, and he was relieved when at length their faces were turned toward home, feeling sure that a separation from Miss Stuart was all that was necessary to awaken Helen's loyalty to him and to put an end to what he considered a most unfortunate episode in the girl's life. To his deep sorrow their return did not accomplish his expectations, for not only had a correspondence been begun between the girls, but Helen's whole bearing toward him changed completely, and her manner was both cold and distant. Finally, one evening, she came to him, and, after a few preliminaries, announced her intention of visiting Miss Stuart at her home in town. This brief announcement aroused Guy's quick temper, and before he realized what had happened, bitter words had been spoken, and Helen had swept out of the room.

The following day she left for town. When a week had passed without a line from her, Guy could endure it no longer and sought an interview, battling with his indignation at the thought that it must take place under Miss Stuart's roof.

Many a time afterward he tried to recall the exact words that were spoken on that memorable occasion, but everything seemed unreal to him, save Helen's face, pale with the determination not to accede to his wishes. Finally, he could recall asking her if she desired her freedom. Alas, poor Guy! The quick spontaneity of her response shattered his last hope.

"Ah, yes, Guy, please. We will be so much better friends, then."

"Friends!" he echoed bitterly; "after all these years."

Helen put her hand on his shoulder, but he gently pushed her from him.

"It is as well I should know the truth now as later. You do not love me, Helen. There is nothing left now, but for us to part."

When he was leaving a sudden recollection came to him of the cause of all this unhappiness, and crushing down his own bitterness, he endeavored in quiet and carefully chosen words to dissuade her from a friendship which he feared she would rue, but she maintained an almost unbroken silence, and the expression of her face told him that his warning was of no avail. So they parted.

Guy was more than justified in his distrust of Lillian Stuart. Had he been a man of less delicate sense of honor he could have righted himself in Helen's eyes by simply relating to her some incontrovertible facts; but the circumstances which had given him his knowledge sealed his lips.

While at college, the name, Lillian Stuart, had grown familiar to him, through hearing her praises sounded by his chum Nelson Leonard. The year after their graduation they ran across each other at Baden, and their college friendship was resumed. Guy was not long in discovering that there was something radically wrong with his friend, and the cause, which all Baden apparently understood, was soon made clear to him.

Among the most noted people frequenting Baden at this time, were a Mrs. Ogden-Stuart and her beautiful daughter. It had been understood on their arrival that Miss Stuart was engaged to the good-looking American, Mr. Leonard, who was traveling in their party. This fact, however, did not seem to stand in the way of her flirting openly with every eligible man in the place, nor prevent her from receiving their constant homage. Leonard was evidently wretched, and there was a touch of recklessness in his manner, which, Guy felt, boded no good to a man of his highly strung, sensitive nature. For a week after Guy's arrival things drifted on, but there was something in the air that seemed to foretell a crisis. Guy had been presented to Miss Stuart, but in spite of her beauty and fascination found nothing in her to like or respect. This Miss Stuart felt instinctively, and as she was accustomed to admiration, it stung her into a desire to win something more than indifference from Leonard's friend. Her efforts were totally unsuccessful, and, as her treatment of her lover became less and less loyal, Guy withdrew altogether from her society, showing her no further courtesy than an occasional bow of recognition. In the meantime Miss Stuart's latest affair, with a certain Frenchman of unenviable reputation, was giving Baden food for gossip and keeping it on the qui vive for a scandal.

Late one afternoon, while Guy sat on the veranda reading letters from home, Miss Stuart and Leonard passed him. The girl's face wore a mocking smile, her eyes a taunt; Leonard was white as death, and his lips twitched piteously. Guy's own face grew stern as he looked up at them, and when Miss Stuart threw him a careless word in salutation he could scarcely frame a civil reply.

That evening Leonard went to Guy's room, and flinging himself down in a chair, gave voice for the first time to his misery.

"I tell you, Appleton," he exclaimed, with a hard laugh, "I shall throw up the game pretty soon. I may be a coward; but it takes more courage than I have to face this thing any longer."

Guy was more startled than he cared to reveal by his friend's passionate, despairing vehemence; and he made an effort to treat the matter lightly and to divert Leonard's thoughts, but his efforts were not crowned with success. When Leonard had left him he paced up and down the room, revolving in his mind what step he should take. At length he determined to go to Miss Stuart, and appeal to her, hoping that so direct a course would result favorably.

He began the interview awkwardly, feeling that his presumption was almost unwarrantable, but when she met his earnest plea for his friend first with indifference, and then with undisguised amusement, he found his anger rising.

"I do not think you can realize Leonard's condition of mind, Miss Stuart," he said darkly. "If you would only put an end to this once for all, I am sure that he is man enough to go away from you and try to live down his disappointment; but he has a peculiarly excitable and sensitive temperament, and if you continue to torture him in this way, I fear you will have his death at your door."

"I am sorry to say," she replied lightly, "that our friend is a fool now," looking up at him with a glance strangely deep and subtle, "if he were half the man you are——"

"I have nothing further to say," Guy interrupted, flushing with indignation and disgust, and without another word he abruptly left her.

Two days later all Baden was shocked by the startling news that young Nelson Leonard had accidentally shot himself and was lying at the point of death.

Those melancholy hours of watching by Leonard's bedside, in that dreary hotel room, lived in Guy's memory. When the doctor's sad verdict was pronounced, the dying man pleaded to be left alone with his friend.

"Ah, dear old fellow," he said gently, when they were alone, "pretty well done—for an accident? Forgive me," he murmured, as he caught a sharp look of pain in Guy's face. "Forgive——" his voice faltered, and his head fell wearily back on the pillow.

Then the poor boy's mind wandered, and Lillian Stuart's name was constantly on his lips. In broken, halting sentences a pitiful story of deception and disappointment was revealed to Guy—a story which would be sacred to him to his life's end, and, as he listened, his whole soul revolted against the woman who had so willfully trifled with this man's tender, loyal heart. Before morning dawned, Nelson Leonard's eyes had closed forever on a life which he had found too difficult for him. When the sad affair was over, Guy would fain have left Baden at once, but he was obliged to await there the arrival of Leonard's family from America.

In the days that ensued Lillian Stuart was markedly subdued, but if she had any suspicion of the real truth concerning Leonard's death she never betrayed it by word or look. She did all in her power to overcome Guy's aversion for her, but he sternly repulsed her. To attempt conciliation was a new rÔle for Miss Stuart, and his cold disregard of all her efforts was the severest wound her vanity had ever received.

Such a slight is not readily forgiven or forgotten by a woman of her type. So when Guy Appleton once more crossed her path, and she found, in his deep love for Helen, his vulnerable point, she felt that her day of triumph had come.

It had been an easy task to secure Helen's friendship, and then to so use her influence with the girl as to effect the annulling of the engagement. Miss Stuart knew Guy's nature well enough to feel almost sure that, however sorely he might be tempted, he would probably never betray his knowledge of that unpleasant episode in her past; so, trading on the man's very uprightness, she revenged herself for the bitter sting of wounded vanity that rankled in her memory.

Her well-planned scheme had been marvelously successful, but one unlooked-for element had entered into it; for Helen's simplicity and purity of nature, her lack of vanity, coquetry, or duplicity, above all, her entire confidence and trust, had touched a tender chord in the heart of this cold and worldly woman, and were in themselves a power so great she felt herself held by them. Could she have foreseen the future, she would, perhaps, have struggled against this most disturbing element.

Guy's return to Hetherford with the announcement that his engagement was at an end, and that he was going immediately abroad, created quite a ferment among the good people at the manor and Rose Cottage, and many were their fruitless conjectures as to the cause of Helen's sudden change of feeling. Across at the parsonage, happy-go-lucky Nan puckered up her jolly face, pondered long over this vexatious question, and hit at last upon the correct solution of it, but wisely kept her own counsel.

Mrs. Appleton took her son's disappointment very much to heart, and when Helen came home again Rose Cottage was closed and its occupants once more gone abroad. When the buckboard rolled by the deserted little place Helen drew her breath sharply, then, catching Jean's reproachful eyes upon her, began hurriedly to speak of other things. The Lawrences frankly avowed to her their regret and disappointment, but not one word of explanation did the girl vouchsafe to them, so after a little they accepted the inevitable, and Guy's name was no longer spoken among them.

And thus it was that of the Lawrence girls, Helen alone had the proud distinction of having had a genuine love affair, the memory of which, however, was tinged with deep regret, and caused her naught but pain. Perhaps she felt intuitively that she had done wrong. What was a pleasant friendship compared to the love of a true man's heart? Yet the thought of a marriage with Guy was out of the question.

So the foolish girl reasoned. Time brings many changes, however, and perhaps what once seemed to Helen a catastrophe may one day seem to open the very gates of Paradise.

And now that we have taken a leaf from Helen's past, let us resume our way.