September with its bright, warm days and cool nights was at hand. The gayeties of the summer were a thing of the past, and the little colony of girls had settled down into the old routine of life, "exactly as we used to before the Vortex came," Mollie Andrews said complacently. No voice was raised in contradiction, and yet, perhaps no heart quite echoed the sentiment.

Jean faced her trouble bravely and without complaint, but the effort told on her as the days passed by, and she grew frail and slender, and an expression of deep sadness lingered in her soft eyes; but the change in her took place so slowly, so gradually, that no one seemed to be aware of it. As the days shortened, they would spend their evenings over the wood fire in the manor drawing-room, reading aloud from some favorite book of poetry or prose. Jean invariably found a place on the divan in the corner, and when someone rallied her on her lazy habit, she only smiled faintly and nestled down among the cushions. One cold, gusty evening, when the rain beat against the windowpanes and the wind howled dismally about the house, Eleanor took up a volume of poems from the table and began to read a poem called "Œnone." Helen's eyes unconsciously sought Jean's face. It was half turned away, and one little hand made shift to shield it, but Helen distinctly saw two great tears steal silently down from under the closed lids.

This set her heart to aching, and alone in her room that night she pondered long what could be done for her poor little sister. In the end she penned a letter, which in the morning she carried herself to the post-office, and anxiously awaited the result.

Before October had well-nigh come around, Jean was really ill; so ill that Aunt Helen, and even thoughtless Nathalie, were seriously concerned. All day long she would lie on the sofa in her room, scarcely speaking save in response to some direct question that was put to her, and all through the long hours of the night her tired eyes never closed.

"I don't think she ever sleeps," Nathalie confided to Helen one day in a troubled voice. "Whenever I speak to her she is always wide-awake, and once or twice I have thought I heard her crying."

Helen shook her head sadly, and watched the mails with an increasing impatience for the answer to her letter. It came at last, and when she had read it through hurriedly, she went at once to Jean's room, and sitting down beside her, took her cold little hands in hers.

"Do you feel so badly to-day, dear?" she said tenderly.

"No, Helen, only very tired."

The sigh with which these words were spoken went right to Helen's heart.

"Would you like to go away where you would have a complete change of scene?"

Jean raised herself on her elbow, and turned an eager eye toward her sister.

"Oh, yes. I want to go away. It's the only thing in the world I really want, and oh, I want it so very much. Helen, I—I can't stay here." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't you see how hard it is for me?"

Helen bent down and kissed her.

"Well, darling, I have arranged it for you, and I have only been waiting for this letter to tell you that it was all right. You see, I didn't want to speak to you, dear, until everything was settled. Now, shall I read you what the letter says?"

"Yes."

Helen drew the letter from her pocket and unfolded it:

Helen paused and Jean broke in hurriedly, a faint color rising in her pale cheeks:

"Dear old Guy! how like him, always thoughtful, always tender. O Helen, yes; let me go. I would be so glad to, and I know it would do me good."

"Would you be happy with Guy and his mother, Jean?"

Jean's sad eyes met her sister's for a moment, and then were slowly averted.

"I love them both dearly," she answered gently, "and I want above everything to go away from Hetherford. Please help me to do this, Helen. You will gain Auntie's consent."

And with this reply Helen was fain to be content. She had refrained from reading aloud the closing lines of Guy's letter, which, running thus, had made her heart beat strangely:

In less than two weeks Jean Lawrence sailed for Europe under the care of Mrs. Fay. A sense of desolation inwrapped the manor. The weather was sharp and cold and the sweet warm summer seemed a dream, and every little thing that recalled it gave the girls a pang. Emily Varian had departed, and both the Hills and Andrews were about to turn their faces cityward.

One crisp morning, when the wind blew fresh from the northwest, Eleanor came out from the inn with Cliff Archer at her side and started briskly forth in the direction of the parsonage. Eleanor's face wore an expression of deep dejection, and Cliff, observing this, made comment on it:

"You are down on your luck."

Eleanor smiled somewhat dubiously:

"It is in the air, Cliff. I don't know what is the matter with us all. Our good spirits seem to have deserted us with Jean."

There was a brief silence, broken by Archer. He spoke slowly, as if not quite sure of his ground:

"It was in the air before Jean went away, I think. It strikes me that she was fully under its influence herself."

Eleanor shot a glance at her companion:

"Jean was not well, you know."

"And there was a cause. Come, Eleanor, let us be frank. You may trust my affection for Jean to keep me from prying into her affairs, but some things this summer were quite too patent to be disregarded."

"I don't know what you mean," Eleanor interposed hurriedly.

"Oh, yes, you do. It is natural for you to shield Jean, because from your point of view, she has been badly treated. Well, I don't agree with you in that. If ever a man was honestly in love, that man was Valentine Farr. I don't pretend to know what the trouble was between them, but I have a suspicion, on general principles, that jealousy was at the bottom of it. I don't believe that Jean's was well founded and I wish she had a friend who felt at liberty to tell her so. I have kept silent for a long time, too long perhaps; but now I have set the ball rolling, and shall await results."

They were in the parsonage grounds now, and Eleanor paused and laid her hand lightly on Cliff's arm.

"I would do anything in the world for Jean, as you know, Cliff, but I feel too much in the dark to take any step at present. You may be right; indeed, I think you are; but remember neither you nor I are quite sure of Jean's feeling on the subject, and it is a very delicate matter to meddle with."

"I would risk it," smiled Cliff.

After a moment he spoke again, in a tone of deeper earnestness:

"A very grave trouble can arise from a slight misunderstanding, Eleanor. I wish, dear, that you and I could put that possibility out of reach. I have tried to be patient, but when I see so much sorrow brought about undoubtedly by a lack of frankness and confidence, I tremble for our future. If you do care for me, dear, why will you not tell me so? Surely you cannot doubt the sincerity of my love for you."

Eleanor raised her eyes to her lover's face.

"I think you know, Cliff——" she began, when Nan's voice broke in upon them.

"Hello! Now what are you two doing, philandering in this secluded spot?"

"Talking of subjects quite beyond your ken, my dear," drawled Cliff lazily.

"You won't catch your train if you don't come down to mother earth," laughed Nan.

Archer consulted his watch, and then bade the girls a hurried good-by and started off for the station. Nan linked her arm in Eleanor's and they proceeded leisurely to the parsonage, talking as they went. One sentence remained in Nan's mind, awakening there a long train of thought.

"The summer is over, Nan, and we are about to disband. We have, perhaps, had more gayety and less real happiness than in the years gone by. I think you know as well as I the reasons for this. You are the only one, I think, who could set some crooked matters straight. Suppose you see what you can do?"

Enigmatical as the words were, Nan understood their purpose, and when, on the last evening before the Andrews and the Hills were to leave Hetherford, they assembled at the manor, she had quite determined to follow Eleanor's suggestion. It was a custom of long standing for Nan, Mollie, and Eleanor to spend the last night of the season with the Lawrence girls, to talk over the events of the summer and to anticipate the future.

To-night, as they gathered around the wide fireplace in the drawing-room, a certain sadness hovered over them, subduing their voices, breaking the conversation with frequent spaces of silence. Their hearts were full of thoughts that were left unspoken. Jean's absence made itself strongly felt among them, so closely was she associated with every like occasion in the past.

"Nothing seems real without her," said Eleanor drearily. "This parting is like no other."

"I hate partings anyway," cried Mollie. "I am always so afraid that we will not come together again quite in the old way!"

quoted Helen.

"Now, girls, this is nonsense," exclaimed Nathalie, struggling with the lump that would rise in her throat. "Jean is going to have a splendid time, and will come home as strong and well as ever, and at Christmas time you will all come up here and we will have a grand reunion."

No answer to Nathalie's cheerful prediction suggested itself, and Helen made a welcome diversion by announcing that it was bedtime.

"Nan, will you share my room?" she asked as they were on their way upstairs.

"Well, I should think so. I particularly want to have a good talk with you alone."

"That is nice. I am just in the humor for it, too."

When they had donned their wrappers Helen threw herself down on the sofa before the open fire, and Nan knelt down on the hearthstone to stir the logs into a brighter blaze.

"A cheerful fire is always inspiring to me," she said explanatorily. "I can talk so much better when I am thoroughly warm and cozy."

Helen smiled indulgently.

"All right, Nan; make yourself comfie, and then talk to me."

The flames were crackling up the chimney now, and Nan settled herself on the hearthrug with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Do you think Jean will be happy so far away from you all?"

"She wanted very much to go," Helen replied evasively.

"Yes, I know that. Helen, Jean was not happy before she went away. Did you not see it?"

Helen did not speak, and after a moment Nan resumed quietly:

"Yes, Jean was unhappy, and yet Mr. Farr loved her dearly."

Helen sat up and looked at her friend in blank astonishment.

"Why, Nan——"

"Dear, I couldn't help guessing it. Indeed, I don't mean to be impertinent, but I believe Mr. Farr was in love with Jean, and I can't bear to see everything going wrong, when a little common sense would set it right."

"I am afraid it would take more than that, Nan. Mr. Farr is in love with Lillian, I think, and probably he meant nothing by his attentions to Jean."

"He may have been in love with Miss Stuart once, but he is not now," declared Nan in a tone of conviction.

"You are mistaken, Nan. I am sure you are."

"I think not," returned Nan stubbornly. "I have had my eyes wide open, and I believe I am right."

"Then why did he treat Jean so?" demanded Helen. "Toward the end of his stay here he hardly ever came to the manor, and he went away without even calling to say good-by. In fact I don't think Jean knew the Vortex was going."

But Nan's opinion was quite unshaken. She dropped her chin in her hand and stared thoughtfully into the fire.

"I will tell you something," she said impressively. "The afternoon before the Vortex left, I was on my way to the inn, when from a distance I saw Mr. Farr turn in at the manor gates. You remember that shortly after Bridget came over for me, and I was so cross at having to leave our game of tennis?"

Helen nodded, and Nan went on:

"Well, on my way over I saw Mr. Farr come out from the manor grounds. His cap was drawn down over his eyes, and so lost was he in his own thoughts that he passed me on the other side of the road, and did not even see me. There was something in his whole figure and bearing expressive of disappointment and unhappiness. Oh, you needn't look incredulous," turning her head to scan Helen's face. "A person's carriage is often most expressive."

"I wasn't looking incredulous, Nan, I was only wondering what point you were going to make out of all this."

"That Mr. Farr did go to the manor to say good-by to Jean. I don't think he could have seen her, for from the time he went in the manor gates until he left them again, he could only have walked to the door and right back again without stopping."

"I know he didn't," said Helen quietly, "for Jean told me so." She hesitated a moment, then added: "Lillian was at home that afternoon."

Nan's face grew downcast.

"I don't believe he went to see Miss Stuart," she persisted, somewhat unreasonably. "I believe that there was some great mistake somewhere. I knew," she went on, as Helen did not reply, "that Jean was surprised to find that he and Miss Stuart were old friends. He may not have told her, but that was probably accidental. At any rate that was the beginning of the difficulty, and every incident from there on served to widen the breach. Jean thought she had been willfully deceived, and Miss Stuart was not loath to lend herself to strengthen that conviction."

"I don't see how you can blame Lillian," objected Helen irritably. "It was not her fault that Mr. Farr was in love with her. I think they were once engaged;" this last somewhat fearfully, for she did not know that she was doing right to betray her friend's secret.

Nan shrugged her shoulders:

"That may be, but it is only a greater reason why he is not in love with her now."

This bit of worldly cynicism struck on deaf ears, for Helen was revolving many things in her mind.

"There are, of course, many things that I cannot attempt to explain," Nan continued, "but I still hold to my belief that Mr. Farr cared for Jean. I like him, and I don't believe he would ever have deliberately deceived her."

A brief pause ensued.

"Nan," said Helen, "I wish the Vortex had never come to anchor here. Everything has gone wrong since then."

"Be fair, Helen. Are you sure the fault lay there? It seems to me that everything went happily until——"

"Until when? Go on, Nan."

"Until Miss Stuart came."

Helen, who had been half-sitting up, with her head propped on her hand, dropped back among the cushions with a heavy sigh.

"I don't know why you should think so. You are prejudiced against Lillian, and harsh in your thoughts of her. I am not at all sure that it is fair."

Nan gained her feet, and looked gravely down at her friend:

"Is it not true, dear? Think, Helen. Have not many things gone wrong since your acquaintance with Miss Stuart? Oh! I am sure of it, quite sure."

Unbroken silence.

"Are you angry with me, Helen?" Nan asked at length.

"No, no."

"May I say something still further, dear?"

"Of course; I know you would never willfully be unkind."

Nan sat down on the sofa:

"Things have gone wrong since the day you met Miss Stuart, and the reason is that you persisted in a friendship of which Guy so strongly disapproved. Tell me, Helen, was it not Miss Stuart who separated you from Guy? Was it not on her account that you quarreled?"

"I suppose so; but Guy was very strange and unreasonable, and I liked Lillian; her friendship was very sweet."

"O Helen, you had known Guy all your life; you should have relied on his judgment, you should have trusted him. Do you think that for any light or insufficient reason he would have thwarted you? Had he not always shown himself thoroughly unselfish in everything that concerned you? You did him a very cruel wrong when you mistrusted him, Helen; and I don't see how you could have been so cold when he loved you so."

For answer, Helen raised her eyes and looked at Nan through her tears.

"I want to help you to see what a mistake you have made," Nan continued gently. "You had grown used to Guy, his devotion was such an old story that you thought you did not love him. Miss Stuart's great beauty fascinated you, and she soon found it easy to bend you to her will. Forgive me, darling, but this once I must speak bluntly. Many and many a time you would have gone back to your allegiance to Guy had she not willed it otherwise, and had he, poor fellow, not taken the worst course for his cause. It was foolish for him to go away, but Guy never could bear half-measures. Since then you have almost learned to know Lillian Stuart for yourself. Yet, even to this day, you blind yourself about her. I sometimes am tempted to think it is simply because she is so beautiful."

Helen started up, her face ablaze.

"Nan, Nan, you are unjust. You despise me because I gave Guy up, but I tell you I realized I did not love him before I ever saw Lillian Stuart. I do love her."

"Pshaw," interrupted Nan indignantly. "Guy Appleton is the best and truest man in the world, and you must have loved him if you had not been unduly influenced. There, dear, don't be angry. You know how fond I am of Guy, and how keenly I took his disappointment to heart. He loved you so, Helen, and he was so miserable."

"Please spare me, Nan," murmured Helen brokenly.

"I can't spare you, dear. If your mistakes had simply made you suffer, I would never have said a word, but it is not so. Miss Stuart has crossed Jean's path, and for her sake I have spoken."

"If it is true, if I were sure of it, I would want to die."

"Dying would not do any good. Live, and some day it may be in your power to put an end to all this sorrow."

"Nan, are you sure that Mr. Farr is in love with Jean?"

"Not sure, Helen, but I think so."

"What can I do?"

"Nothing at present. We must wait, and see what happens. Oh! I am very hopeful for the future."

When they were in bed and the lights were out, Nan ventured to ask:

"Don't you think Guy will ever return to Hetherford?"

"I don't know, dear," Helen replied, with a sound of tears in her voice.

Nan longed to shake her, to say "You ought to know; it depends solely upon you; why don't you do something about it?" but she felt she had gone far enough for one night, and turning over on her pillow, fell fast asleep.

Nan was only a country-bred lass, and yet not all her separation from the world and from her fellow-creatures could shut her out from an unerring comprehension of human nature. Her wide sympathies taught her to understand Helen's coldness toward a lover whose one fault was that he had demanded too little and yielded too much; and she was too thorough an artist not to fully appreciate the wonderful spell that beauty such as Miss Stuart's casts upon certain natures.

The next day the rain came down in sheets, and nothing drearier could be imagined than the Hetherford station, where Helen and Nathalie awaited the arrival of their friends, who were to depart on the train which was now almost due. Presently the old omnibus backed up to the platform, and from its damp interior the Hills and Andrews slowly emerged, their faces as gloomy as the leaden sky above, as they went through the irksome task of buying tickets and checking trunks. Nan came rushing in upon the scene just as the train drew up at the station. There were a few hurried words of farewell, and then, with a clanging of bells and puffing of steam, the train sped on its way to the far-off city. When the three girls clambered into the Lawrences' great closed rockaway, they felt sorely tempted to give way to tears and lamentations. The horses splashed through the mud, the rain beat against the windowpanes, the east wind wailed and sighed through the trees. Nan got out at the parsonage, and in silence the two sisters drove on to the manor. Nathalie threw off her hat and coat, and seating herself at the big table in the center of the hall-way, began a long letter to Jean. From the fireside Helen watched her for a few moments and then mounted slowly to her room, feeling too dispirited for even Aunt Helen's society.

By and by a soft little voice from without begged for admission, and she opened the door and gladly drew Gladys into the room.

"Baby, you are just the little girlie I wanted. Sister feels very dull and lonely to-day."

"Me too," echoed Gladys, as she climbed into her lap.

"Well, well, that is too bad. We shall have to comfort each other."

"What is comfort, sister?"

"Comfort, Dolly? Why to comfort anyone is to try to make them happy when something is troubling them."

"Auntie says I'se her comfort," Gladys affirmed, with a wise little nod of her head.

"So you are, pet, and not only Auntie's, but mine too."

The child nestled down contentedly in her sister's arms. Her big eyes, wandering about the room, rested at length upon a large folding frame of photographs which stood on the mantel.

"I wish Jeanie didn't go 'way," she said in a pathetic little voice.

"What made you think of Jean, dear?"

"'Cause I just was lookin' at her picture."

Helen lifted her eyes to the mantel.

"So you were. We all miss Jean very much, don't we, darling?"

"Who's that, sister?" asked Gladys, pointing to the photograph next to the one of Jean.

"Don't you know?"

"I kind of 'member, but I ain't sure."

"Have you forgotten Mr. Appleton, Gladys—Guy Appleton?" queried Helen in a low tone.

"Oh, now I 'member," cried Gladys gleefully. "Don't you know the little kitty he gave me? Larry harnessed her to my little wed cart, an' she wan up the willow tree with it." And at the recollection, the child burst into a merry peal of laughter.

Helen laughed, too, in sympathy, and then it came back to her how nicely Guy had spoken to the children, telling them that what was fun to them was suffering to poor kitty, and impressing upon them how unkind and cowardly it was to be cruel to any living creature.

They talked on thus, this big and little sister, until twilight had come. Then Helen put the child down from her lap, and sent her off to the nursery for her supper. As she turned back into the room, her eyes could just discern the outline of the frame upon the mantel, but although the photographs within it were quite obscured by the dusk, Guy's face rose before her with startling distinctness. She dropped into a chair, and a dismal little laugh broke from her.

"Oh, dear, I wish Gladys and Nan had both kept still. Now I don't know what I do want."

Week followed week monotonously, with little to mark the flight of time save the arrival of letters from Jean and the Appletons. Jean wrote cheerfully, declaring that she was much better and in excellent spirits, but Mrs. Appleton's reports were much less encouraging.

"Jean never complains," she wrote, "and seems filled with a restless desire to keep constantly on the move, but she still looks very fragile, and I sometimes fear that all at once she will break down completely. However, you must not be anxious, about her, for perhaps I am needlessly so. Mrs. Fay expects to return home at Christmas time, and I imagine that by then Jean will be quite ready to accompany her."

The last week in November Helen went to town to spend Thanksgiving with the Hills.

"It seemed almost selfish to take you away from Nathalie," Eleanor said, as they drove rapidly away from the station through the noisy, crowded streets, "but I was longing for a sight of someone from Hetherford, and I thought it would be such fun to begin to do our Christmas shopping together. A little later the shops are so terribly overcrowded."

The first few days of Helen's visit were passed chiefly in this wise, and partly because her time was so fully occupied, and partly because of a curiously uncomfortable feeling which she could not shake off, she neglected to let Miss Stuart know that she was in town. On the fourth evening after her arrival they dined at a famous restaurant with an uncle and aunt of Eleanor's and two youths of the jeunesse dorÉe. Helen had felt very shy at first, but this was fast wearing off, and she was talking quite naturally and pleasantly with her companion, when a party of two ladies and half a dozen men entered the room, and selecting a table at a short distance from where Eleanor and her friends were seated, grouped themselves about it; their loud talking and easy assurance attracting universal attention. Helen stared at them a little curiously, and then, as one of the ladies drew off her long tan gloves and let her gaze wander slowly around the room, she gave a sudden start. At the same instant the lady's glance met Helen's, and the recognition was mutual. Miss Stuart gracefully inclined her head, a certain surprise in her eyes, and Helen flushed crimson as she returned the bow.

"Why, there is Miss Stuart," exclaimed Eleanor. "I can't imagine why she chooses such a companion as Mrs. Desborough."

"And why should Miss Stuart be so particular?" laughed the man at her side. "It would be the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn't it?"

Eleanor broke in hurriedly, with some totally irrelevant remark, but the words had reached Helen's ears. The color died out of her face, and from that moment her companion found her silent and absent-minded. As they passed out of the restaurant, Miss Stuart bowed smilingly to Eleanor and turned a steady level glance on Helen.

"Who were you bowing to?" asked Mrs. Desborough from the other side of the table.

"To Miss Hill and her friend Miss Lawrence," Miss Stuart replied a little stiffly.

"What?" laughed the man at her side, "not that demure little girl who was dining with Miss Hill?"

"The very same. She is a great friend of mine."

"Oh, come now, don't tell me that. You two never hit it off together."

Miss Stuart frowned.

"You will oblige me by not discussing the subject," she returned, in a tone so unlike her usual careless, flippant one that her companion was impressed by it. "I like her infinitely better than any woman I have ever known."

"By Jove, I believe you are in earnest!"

"Don't believe anything," she answered sharply, and turning to the man on her left plunged at once into a reckless flirtation.