affair I've undertaken on
my own account."

XV

HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER

Lurk, lurk.

_King Lear_.

The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.

He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls who
stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
themselves.

"Sit, ladies," said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: "You're all upset, you are, by
what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He'd
like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn't he wait for the sheriff. It
looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right."

"Oh! don't!" wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
warm-hearted Maggie. "The horrors of this house'll kill me. I can't
stand it a minute longer. I'll go--I'll go to-morrow."

"You won't; you're too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
sister in their desperate trouble," Sweetwater put in, with a decision as
suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.

Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
into her ear:

"She talks most, but she doesn't feel her responsibilities any more
than you do. I've had my experience with women, and you're of the sort
that stays."

She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
have abashed most men.

"I don't know your name, or your business here," said she; "but I do know
that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall do or
shan't do. I don't even know, myself."

"That's because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as--well, I
won't say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can't
help seeing what you are, you know."

She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.

"Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!" thought he; and, with the most
innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the man
then in cus