t kissed her!" he wound up as the train glided out of the
station, leaving Helen Thurwell on the platform waving her handkerchief.
"Well, we're off. So far, so good. I feel like winning."

But, unfortunately for Mr. Benjamin, there was a third person in that
train whom neither he nor Mr. Maddison knew of, who was very much
interested in the latter. Had he only mentioned his name, or referred in
the slightest possible way to his business abroad before Mr. Benjamin,
that young gentleman would have promptly abandoned his expedition and
returned to town. But, as he did not, all three traveled on together in
a happy state of ignorance concerning each other; and Mr. Benjamin Levy
was very near experiencing the greatest disappointment of his life.

CHAPTER XXVI

HELEN DECIDES TO GO HOME

Mr. Benjamin Levy's surmise had been an accurate one. Late in the
afternoon of that day, Helen Thurwell called at the little office off
the Strand, and when she left it an hour later, she had in her pocket a
packet of letters, and Mr. Levy had in his safe a check and promissory
note for five thousand pounds. Both were very well satisfied--Mr. Levy
with his money, and Helen with the consciousness that she had saved her
lover from the consequences of what she now regarded as her great folly.

She was to have dined out that evening with her aunt, but when the time
to dress came, she pleaded a violent headache, and persuaded Lady
Thurwell, who was a good-natured little woman, to take an excuse.

"But, my dear Helen, you don't look one bit ill," she had ventured to
protest, "and the Cullhamptons are such nice people. Are you sure that
you won't come?"

"If you please, aunt," she had begged, "I really do want to stay at home
this evening;" and Lady Thurwell had not been able to withstand her
niece's imploring tone, so she had gone alone.

Helen spent the evening as she had planned to. She took her work down
into the room where they had been the night before, and where this
wonderful thing had happened to her. Then she leaned back in her low
chair--the same chair--and gave herself up to the luxury of thought; and
when a young woman does that she is very far gone indeed. It was all so
strange to her, so bewildering, that she needed time to realize it.

And as she sat there, her eyes, full of a soft dreamy light, fixed upon
vacancy, and her lips parted in a happy smile, she felt a sudden longing
to be back again upon the moorland cliff