Part 28 (2/2)

Helen paused, and the other, who had sat down and was leaning forward anxiously, asked her, ”Then it is this friend that you love?”

”No,” the girl replied, ”it is not that; I do not love anybody.”

”But then I do not understand,” went on Mr. Harrison, with a puzzled look. ”You spoke of its having been so wrong; was it not your right to wish to marry me?”

And Helen, punis.h.i.+ng herself as she had learned so bravely to do, did not lower her eyes even then; she flushed somewhat, however, as she answered: ”Mr. Harrison, do you know WHY I wished to marry you?”

The other started a trifle, and looked very much at a loss indeed.

”Why?” he echoed. ”No, I do not know--that is--I never thought--”

”It hurts me more than I can tell you to have to say this to you,”

Helen said, ”for you were right and true in your feeling. But did you think that I was that, Mr. Harrison? Did you think that I really loved you?”

Probably the good man had never been more embarra.s.sed in his life than he was just then. The truth to be told, he was perfectly well aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along, without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was quite without an answer to her present question, and could only cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on quickly, without waiting very long for his reply.

”I owe it to you to tell you the truth,” she said, ”and then it will no longer cause you pain to give me up. For I did not love you at all, Mr. Harrison; but I loved all that you offered me, and I allowed myself to be tempted thus, to promise to marry you. Ever afterwards I was quite wretched, because I knew that I was doing something wicked, and yet I never had the courage to stop. So it went on until my punishment came yesterday. I have suffered fearfully since that.”

Helen had said all that there was to be said, and she stopped and took a deep breath of relief. There was a minute or two of silence, after which Mr. Harrison asked: ”And you really think that it was so wrong to promise to marry me for the happiness that I could offer you?”

Helen gazed at him in surprise as she echoed, ”Was it so wrong?” And at the same moment even while she was speaking, a memory flashed across her mind, the memory of what had occurred at Fairview the last time she had been there with Mr. Harrison. A deep, burning blush mantled her face, and her eyes dropped, and she trembled visibly. It was a better response to the other's question than any words could have been, and because in spite of his contact with the world he was still in his heart a gentleman, he understood and changed color himself and looked away, feeling perhaps more rebuked and humbled than he had ever felt in his life before.

So they sat thus for several minutes without speaking a word, or looking at each other, each doing penance in his own heart. At last, in a very low voice, the man said, ”Helen, I do not know just how I can ever apologize to you.”

The girl answered quietly: ”I could not let you apologize to me, Mr.

Harrison, for I never once thought that you had done anything wrong.”

”I have done very wrong indeed,” he answered, his voice trembling, ”for I do not think that I had any right even to ask you to marry me. You make me feel suddenly how very coa.r.s.e a world I have lived in, and how much lower than yours all my ways of thinking are. You look surprised that I say that,” he added, as he saw that the girl was about to interrupt him, ”but you do not know much about the world. Do you suppose that there are many women in society who would hesitate to marry me for my money?”

”I do not know,” said Helen, slowly; ”but, Mr. Harrison, you could certainly never be happy with a woman who would do that.”

”I do not think now that I should,” the man replied, earnestly, ”but I did not feel that way before. I did not have much else to offer, Helen, for money is all that a man like me ever tries to get in the world.”

”It is so very wrong, Mr. Harrison,” put in the other, quickly.

”When people live in that way they come to lose sight of all that is right and beautiful in life; and it is all so selfish and wicked!”

(Those were words which might have made Mr. Howard smile a trifle had he been there to hear them; but Helen was too much in earnest to think about being original.)

”I know,” said Mr. Harrison, ”and I used to believe in such things; but one never meets anyone else that does, and it is so easy to live differently. When you spoke to me as you did just now, you made me seem a very poor kind of a person indeed.”

The man paused, and Helen sat gazing at him with a worried look upon her face. ”It was not that which I meant to do,” she began, but then she stopped; and after a long silence, Mr. Harrison took up the conversation again, speaking in a low, earnest voice.

”Helen,” he said, ”you have made me see that I am quite unworthy to ask for your regard,--that I have really nothing fit to offer you.

But I might have one thing that you could appreciate,--for I could wors.h.i.+p, really wors.h.i.+p, such a woman as you; and I could do everything that I could think of to make myself worthy of you,--even if it meant the changing of all my ways of life. Do you not suppose that you could quite forget that I was a rich man, Helen, and still let me be devoted to you?”

There was a look in Mr. Harrison's eyes as he gazed at her just then which made him seem to her a different sort of a man,--as indeed he was. She answered very gently. ”Mr. Harrison,” she said, ”it would be a great happiness to me to know that anyone felt so about me. But I could never marry you; I do not love you.”

”And you do not think,” asked the other, ”that you could ever come to love me, no matter how long I might wait?”

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