in. For a long time he looked at him, and presently
Franklin saw that tears had mounted to his eyes. The emotion that he
felt to be so unusual, communicated itself to him. He really hadn't
known till he saw Gerald Digby's eyes fill with tears what his own
emotion was. It surged up in him suddenly, blotting out Gerald's face,
overpowering the long resistance of his trained control; and it was with
an intolerable sense of loss and desolation that, knowing that he loved
Gerald and that Gerald's tears were a warrant for his loveableness and
for the workings of fate against himself, he put his head down on his
arms and, not sobbing, not weeping, yet overcome, he let the waves of
his sorrow meet over him.

He did not know, then, what he thought or felt. All that he was
conscious of was the terrible submerging of will and thought and the
engulfing sense of desolation; and all that he seemed to hear was the
sound of his own heart beating the one lovely and agonising word:
'Helen--Helen--Helen!'

He was aware at last, dimly, that Gerald had moved, had come round the
table, and was leaning on it beside him. Then Gerald put his hand on
Franklin's hand. The touch drew him up out of his depths. He raised his
head, keeping his face hidden, and he clasped Gerald's hand for a
moment. Then Gerald said brokenly: 'You mustn't write. You mustn't do
anything for me. You must let me take my own chances--and if I've none
left, it will be what I deserve.'

These words, like air breathed in after long suffocation under water,
cleared Franklin's mind. He shook his head, and he found Gerald's hand
again while he said, able now, as the light grew upon him, to think:

'I want to write. I want you to have all the chances you can.'

'I don't deserve them,' said Gerald.

'I don't know about that,' said Franklin, 'I don't know about that at
all. And besides'--and now he found something of his old whimsicality to
help his final argument--'let's say, if you'd rather, that Helen
deserves them. Let's say that it's for Helen's sake that I want you to
have every chance.'

CHAPTER XXXII.

Helen received Franklin's letter by the first post next morning. She
read it in bed, where she had remained ever since parting from him,
lying there with closed eyes in the drowsy apathy that had fallen upon
her.

'DEAR HELEN,'--Franklin wrote, and something in the writing pained
her even before she read the words--'Gerald Digby has been with me