e agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted
with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed
her emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or have instincts,
but had she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman, having
lost themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in comradeship?

Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen's evening.
Troubles enough lay ahead of her--the loss of friends and of social
advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of motherhood, which is not
even yet a matter of common knowledge. For the present let the moon
shine brightly and the breezes of the spring blow gently, dying away
from the gale of the day, and let the earth, that brings increase, bring
peace. Not even to herself dare she blame Helen.

She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything
or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that
morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him.
It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.

This was Helen's evening--won at what cost, and not to be marred by the
sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word.

"One isolates," said Helen slowly. "I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other
forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of
pity, and almost of revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and
so, when your letters came--"

"I need never have written them," sighed Margaret. "They never shielded
Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even for others!"

"I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts."

"Looking back, that was wrong of me."

"Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to save
the man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we
both thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time--and Mrs. Bast
was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to
Leonard--I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned me
I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation--he knew of it, and
you mustn't know. I p