"

"What did he know?"

"That I would rather think that I was bad than that you were."

"And would you?"

"Yes I would--now. Mr. Hannay spared me all he could. He didn't tell me
that if you had died at Scarby it would have been my fault. But it would
have been."

He groaned.

"Darling--you couldn't say that if you knew anything about it."

"I know all about it."

He shook his head.

"Listen, Walter. You've been unfaithful to me--once, years after I gave
you cause. I've been unfaithful to you ever since I married you. And your
unfaithfulness was nothing to mine. A woman once told me that. She said
you'd only broken one of your marriage vows, and I had broken all of
them, except one. It was true."

"Who said that to you?"

"Never mind who. It needed saying. It was true. I sinned against the
light. I knew what you were. You were good and you loved me. You were
unhappy through loving me, and I shut my eyes to it. I've done more harm
to you than that poor girl--Maggie. You would never have gone to her if I
hadn't driven you. You loved me."

"Yes, I loved you."

She turned to him again; and her eyes searched his for absolution. "I
didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand."

"No. A woman doesn't, dear. Not when she's as good as you."

At that a sob shook her. In the passion of her abasement she had cast off
all her beautiful spiritual apparel. Now she would have laid down her
crown, her purity, at his feet.

"I thought I was so good. And I sinned against my husband more that he
ever sinned against me."

He took her hands and tried to draw her to him, but she broke away, and
slid to the floor and knelt there, bowing her head upon his knee. Her
hair fell, loosened, upon her shoulders, veiling her.

He stooped and raised her. His hand smoothed back the hair that hid her
face. Her eyes were closed.

Her drenched eyelids felt his lips upon them. They opened; and in her
eyes he saw love risen to immortality through mortal tears. She looked at
him, and she knew him as she knew her own soul.

The End

By MAY SINCLAIR

THE HELPMATE

_The Literary Digest_ says: "The novels of May Sinclair make waste paper
of most of the fiction of a season." This new story, the first written
since "The Divine Fire," will strengthen the author's reputation.
It has been serialized in _The Atlantic Monthly_, and _The New York Sun_
says of an early instalment:

"Miss Sinclair's new novel, 'The Helpmate,'