despised her
for it. A woman must be a fool indeed to wreck herself at the last moment
for a merely sentimental reason. There was much, however, that was
incomprehensible to Helen Romer in the situation of things, which she
only half understood.

If Maurice loved Vera, why was it that he was in Manchester whilst she
was still in Meadowshire? that was what Helen could not understand. A
sure instinct told her that Maurice must know better than any one why his
brother's marriage had been broken off. But, if so, then why were he and
Vera apart? It did not strike her that his honour to his brother and his
promises to herself were what kept him away. Helen said to herself,
scornfully, that they were both of them timid and cowardly, and did not
half know how to play out life's game.

"In her place, with her cards in my hand, I would have married him by
this," she said to herself, as she sat alone in her grandfather's
drawing-room, while her busy fingers ran swiftly through the meshes of
her knitting, and the doctor and the hired nurse paced about the room
overhead. "But she has not the pluck for it; his heart may be hers, but,
for all that, I shall win him; and how bitterly she will repent that she
ever interfered with him when she sees him daily there--my husband! And
in time he will forget her and learn to love me; Maurice will never be
false to a woman when once she is his wife; I am not afraid of that. How
dared she meddle with him?--_my_ Maurice!"

The door softly opened, and one of the doctors stepped in on tip-toe.
Helen rose and composed her face into a decorous expression of mournful
anxiety.

"I am happy to tell you, Mrs. Romer," began the doctor. Helen's heart
sank down chill and cold within her.

"Is he better?" she faltered, striving to conceal the dismay which she
felt.

"He has rallied. Consciousness has returned, and partial use of the
limbs. We may be able to pull your grandfather through this time, I
trust."

Put off again! How wretched and how guilty she felt herself to be! It was
almost a crime to wish for any one's death so much.

She sank down again pale and spiritless upon her chair as the doctor left
the room.

"Never mind," she said to herself, presently; "it can't last for ever. It
must be soon now, and I shall be Maurice's wife in the end."

But all this time she had forgotten Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet, whom
she had not seen again since the night she had driven him home from
Walpole