ppened to Franklin since she had last seen him, all the
strange, new things that Helen must have meant to him; and the thought,
fleeting though it was, made more urgent the impulse that pressed her
on. For, after all, the second glance showed him as so much the same,
the same to the unbecomingness of his clothes, the flatness of his
features, the general effect of decision and placidity that he always,
predominatingly, gave.

It was on Franklin's sameness that she leaned. It was Franklin's
sameness that was her goal; she trusted it like the ground beneath her
feet. She went to him and put out her hands. 'Dear Franklin,' she said,
'I am so glad to see you.'

He took her hands and held them while he looked into her eyes. The face
she lifted to him was a woeful one, in spite of the steadying of its
pale lips to a smile. It was not enfranchisement and the sustained
height that he saw--it was fear and desolation; they looked at him out
of her large, sad eyes and they were like an uttered cry. He saw her
need, worse still, he saw her trust; and yet, ah yet, his hope, his
unacknowledged hope, the hope which Helen's magic had poured into his
veins, pulsed in him. He saw her need, but as he looked, full of
compassion and solicitude, he was hoping that her need was not of him.

Suddenly Althea burst into sobs. She leaned her face against his
shoulder, her hands still held in his, and she wept out: 'O Franklin, I
had to send for you--you are my only friend--I am so unhappy, so
unhappy.' Franklin put an arm around her, still holding her hand, and he
slightly patted her back as she leaned upon him. 'Poor Althea, poor
dear,' he said.

'Oh, what shall I do, Franklin?' she whispered.

'Tell me all about it,' said Franklin. 'Tell me what's the matter.'

She paused for a moment, and in the pause her thoughts, released for
that one instant from their place of servitude, scurried through the
inner confusion. His tone, the quietness, kindness, rationality of it,
seemed to demand reason, not impulse, from her, the order of truth and
not the chaos of feeling. But pain and fear had worked for too long upon
her, and she did not know what truth was. All she knew was that he was
near, and tender and compassionate, and to know that seemed to be
knowing at last that here was the real love, the love of spirit from
which she had turned to lower things. Impulse, not insincere, surged up,
and moved by it alone she sobbed on, 'O Franklin, I have m