k. His very life depends on you."

Helen obeyed this order, and went slowly back to Arthur; she sat, cold as
ice, on the sofa beside him, and he made love to her. She scarcely heard
what he said; she was asking herself how she could end this intolerable
interview, and escape her father's looks, who knew the real state of her
heart.

At last she rose, and went and whispered to him: "My courage has failed
me. Have pity on me, and get me away. It is the old man; he kills me."

General Rolleston took the hint, and acted with more tact than one would
have given him credit for. He got up and rang the bell for tea. Then he
said to Helen, "You don't drink tea now, and I see you are excited more
than is good for you. You had better go to bed."

"Yes, papa," said Helen.

She took her candle, and, as she passed young Wardlaw, she told him, in a
low voice, she would be glad to speak to him alone to-morrow.

"At what hour?" said he eagerly.

"When you like. At one."

And so she retired, leaving him in ecstasies. This was the first
downright assignation she had ever made with him.

They met at one o'clock; he radiant as the sun, and a rose in his
button-hole; she sad and somber, and with her very skin twitching at the
thought of the explanation she had to go through.

He began with amorous commonplaces; she stopped him, gravely.

"Arthur," said she, "you and I are alone now, and I have a confession to
make. Unfortunately, I must cause you pain--terrible pain. Oh, my heart
flinches at the wound I am going to give you; but it is my fate either to
wound you or to deceive you."

During this preamble, Arthur sat amazed rather than alarmed. He did not
interrupt her, though she paused, and would gladly have been interrupted,
since an interruption is an assistance in perplexities.

"Arthur, we suffered great hardships on the boat, and you would have lost
me but for one person. He saved my life again and again; I saved his upon
the island. My constancy was subject to trials--oh such trials! So great
an example of every manly virtue forever before my eyes! My gratitude and
my pity eternally pleading! England and you seemed gone forever. Make
excuses for me if you can. Arthur--I--I have formed an attachment."

In making this strange avowal she hung her head and blushed, and the
tears ran down her cheeks. But we suspect they ran for _him,_ and not for
Arthur.

Arthur turned deadly sick at this tremendous blow, dealt with so so