'

She shook her head. 'No, I'm not so bad as that. It won't be for
revenge. It will be for you--and for myself, too; because I'd rather
have it so; I'd rather have you, Franklin, than the ruined thing.'

She knew that it was final and supreme temptation that she put before
him, and she held it there resolved, so that if there were one chance
for him he should have it. She knew that she would stand by what she
said. Franklin was her pride and Gerald her humiliation; she would never
accept humiliation; and though she could see Franklin go without a
qualm, she could, she saw it clearly, have a welcome for him nearly as
deep as love's, if he came back to her. And what she hoped, quite
selflessly, was that the temptation would suffice; that he would not go
to Althea. She looked into his face, and she saw that he was tormented.

'But, Helen,' he said, 'the man you love loves you; doesn't that settle
everything?'

She shook her head again. 'It settles nothing. I told you that I was a
woman with a broken heart. It's not mended; it never can be mended.'

'But, Helen,' he said, and a pitiful smile of supplication dawned on his
ravaged little face, 'that's where you're so wrong. You've got to let it
soften and then it will have to mend. It's the hard hearts that get
broken.'

'Well, mine is hard.'

'Let it melt, Helen,' he pleaded with her, 'please let it melt. Please
let yourself be happy, dear Helen.'

But still she shook her head, looking deeply at him, and in the
negation, in the look, it was as if she held her cup of magic steadily
before him. She was there, for him, if he would have her. She kept him
to his word for his sake; but she kept him to his word for hers, too.
Yes, he saw that though it was for his sake, it was not for his
alone--there was the final magic--that her eyes met his in that long,
clear look. It was the nearest he would ever come to Helen; it was the
most she could ever do for him; and, with a pang, deep and piercing, he
felt all that it meant, and felt his love of her avowed in his own eyes,
and recognised, received in hers. Helplessly, now, he looked at her, his
lips pressed together so that they should not show their trembling, and
only a little muscle in his cheek quivering irrepressibly. And he
faltered: 'Helen--you could never love me back.'

'Not in that way,' said Helen. She was grave and clear; she had not a
hesitation. 'But that way is ruined and over for me. I could live for
you, th