Helen said.

"Well," Dr. Howe conceded, "yes--I suppose you might mention it to
Lois--because"--

"I don't want her to think anything wrong of John," Helen explained.

Dr. Howe stared at her blankly, but did not burst into wrathful
exclamations; he was actually exhausted in mind and body; this
controversy had been too much for him. But that remark of Helen's ended
it. She went slowly up-stairs, clinging to the balustrade as though she
needed some support, yet she had not spoken of being tired. She passed
Lois, sitting on the window-seat which ran across the broad landing, but
did not seem to see her, and there was something in her cousin's face
which kept the young girl dumb.

Dr. Howe did not go to Dale house until the next day; he vaguely hoped
something would turn up before his sister discovered Helen's presence at
the rectory, which would make this humiliating confession unnecessary.
But nothing happened except the arrival of a letter from John Ward to Dr.
Howe, explaining his convictions and reiterating his determination.

Helen kept in her own room that day and the next, so Gifford Woodhouse,
who came to the rectory, did not guess her presence, since Lois had been
admonished to be silent concerning it, and no one else chanced to call.
Of course the servants knew. Dr. Howe ground his teeth as he reflected
that Sally would probably tattle the whole thing; the more so, if she
were charged not to mention it. Yet he was rather relieved, when he went
to tell his sister, to find that she knew the main fact already.

"Helen's back again!" she cried as soon as she saw him.

He found her in the big cool dining-room, cutting out pieces of paper for
the tops of her pots of strawberry jam, and fringing them delicately with
a little pair of shining scissors.

"Well, Archibald," she said, looking at him over her glasses, as he
sat down at the other end of the polished table, "this is pretty hot,
isn't it? I'll have Betty bring you a sangaree; there's a fan on the
window-sill, if you want it; I never have patience to use a fan. Henry's
in his library. I declare, it is as cold as a vault in that room; but
you'd better not go down. We Howes are too rheumatic for such damp
places."

Betty brought the sangaree, and the rector diverted himself while he put
off the evil moment of explanation, by clinking the ice against the
glass.

"Betty was down in the village last night," Mrs. Dale was saying, "and
she saw your Sally, a