e, even if only momentary, like
the lull and softness in nature, was better than the beating fierceness
of rebellion. Everything was over. And here beside her went the dear
ungainly dog. She turned her head and smiled at him, the raindrops on
her lashes.

'You don't mind the rain, Miss Buchanan?' said Franklin, who had looked
anxiously at the weather, and probably felt himself responsible for not
producing an umbrella for a lady's need.

'I like it.' She continued to smile at him.

'Miss Buchanan,' said Franklin, looking at her earnestly and not smiling
back, 'I want to say something. I've seemed egotistic and I've been
egotistic. I've talked only about my own troubles; but I don't believe
you wanted to talk about yours, did you?' Helen, smiling, slightly
shook her head. 'And at the same time you've not minded my knowing that
you have troubles to bear.' Again she shook her head. 'Well, that's what
I thought; that's all right, then. What I wanted to say was that if ever
I can help you in any way--if ever I can be of any use--will you please
remember that I'm your friend.'

Helen, still looking at him, said nothing for some moments. And now,
once more, a slight colour rose in her cheeks. 'I can't imagine why you
should be my friend,' she said. 'I feel that I know a great deal about
you; but you know nothing about me, and please believe me when I say
that there's very little to know.'

Already he knew her well enough to know that the slight colour,
lingering on her cheek, meant that she was moved. 'Ah, I can't believe
you there,' he said. 'And at all events, whatever there is to know, I'm
its friend. You don't know yourself, you see. You only know what you
feel, not at all what you are.'

'Isn't that what I am?' She looked away, disquieted by this analysis of
her own personality.

'By no means all,' said Franklin. 'You've hardly looked at the you that
can do things--the you that can think things.'

She didn't want to look at them, poor, inert, imprisoned creatures. She
looked, instead, at the quaint, unexpected, and touching thing with
which she was presented--Mr. Kane's friendship. She would have liked to
have told him that she was grateful and that she, too, was his friend;
but such verbal definitions as these were difficult and alien to her,
as alien as discussion of her own character and its capacities. It
seemed to be claiming too much to claim a capacity for friendship. She
didn't know whether she was anybo