believe it now.'

They sat thus for a long time in silence--Gerald with his head leant on
his hands, Franklin looking at him quietly and thoughtfully. And as a
result of long reflection, he said at last: 'If she loves you still, you
won't have to try to make her believe it. I'd like to believe it, and so
would you; but if Helen loves you, she'll take you for yourself, of
course. The question is, does she love you? Does she love you enough, I
mean, to want to mend and grow again? Perhaps it's that way you've
wrecked her; perhaps it's withered her--going on for all these years
caring, while you didn't see and want.'

From behind his hands Gerald made a vague sound of acquiescent distress.
'What shall I do?' he then articulated. 'She won't see me. She says she
won't see me until I can meet her as if I'd forgotten. It isn't with
Helen the sort of thing it would mean with most women. She's not saving
her dignity by threats and punishments she won't hold to. Helen always
means what she says--horribly.'

Franklin contemplated the bent head. Gerald's thick hair, disordered by
the long, fine fingers that ran up into it; Gerald's attitude sitting
there, miserable, yet not undignified, helpless, yet not humble;
Gerald's whole personality, its unused strength, its secure sweetness,
affected him strangely. He didn't feel near Gerald as he had, in a
sense, felt near Helen. They were aliens, and would remain so; but he
felt tenderly towards him. And, even while it inflicted a steady,
probing wound to recognise it, he recognised, profoundly, sadly, and
finally, that Gerald and Helen did belong to each other, by an affinity
deeper than moral standards and immeasurable by the test of happiness.
Helen had been right to love him all her life. He felt as if he, from
his distance, loved him, for himself, and because he was loveable. And
he wanted Helen to take Gerald. He was sure, now, that he wanted it.

'See here,' he said, in his voice of mild, fraternal deliberation, 'I
don't know whether it will do much good, but we'll try it. Helen has a
very real feeling for me, you know; Helen likes me and thinks of me as a
true friend. I'm certainly not satisfactory to her,' and Franklin smiled
a little; 'but all the same she's very fond of me; she'd do a lot to
please me; I'm sure of it. So how would it be if I wrote to her and put
things to her, you know?'

Gerald raised his head and looked over the table across the piled
pamphlets at Frankl