“It was about the work here,” said Thornton gently.  “Her whole soul seemed wrapt up in that—­and she asked me as her last wish to do what she would have done if she had lived; and she spoke of you very beautifully.”  Thornton paused for a moment—­then he laid his hands on Helena’s shoulders—­and she felt them tremble a little.  “Miss Vail—­Helena,” he said, and his voice was full of passionate earnestness now, “I cannot say these things well—­only simply.  I came back here to take an interest in the work, for I too have it at heart—­but I have more than that now—­there is you—­your dear self.  I love you, Helena—­you have come into my life until you are everything and all to me.  Helena, look up at me—­will you marry me, dear?  Tell me what I long to hear.  Helena, Helena—­I love you!”

But Helena did not answer—­only very slowly she raised her head.  And his hands on her shoulders tightened, and he was drawing her gently toward him.  Then he bent his head until it was close to hers, and his breath was upon her cheek as it had been that other night—­and the longing to know that it was hers, a caress, pure in its motive, hers, snatched out of all that had gone before that sought to rob her of the right to ever know it, fascinated her, held her spellbound, possessed her.  Closer his lips came to hers, closer, until they touched her—­and then, with a cry, she sprang back, and her hands were fiercely pressed against her cheeks, her throbbing temples.  Was she mad!  Mad!  Was it for this that she had forced herself to give him the opportunity to speak to-night, when her motive was so different, when it had seemed the only right thing left for her to do!

And now, still holding her temples, she raised her eyes to Thornton—­he had stepped back like a man stricken, his hands dropped to his sides.

“I—­we are mad!” she whispered.

“Helena!” he said in a numbed way; and again; “Helena!” Then, with an effort to control his voice:  “You—­you do not care—­you do not love me?”

“No,” she said—­and thereafter for a long time a silence held between them.

Then Thornton spoke.

“Some day perhaps, Helena,” he said, “you could learn to love me—­for I would teach you.  Perhaps now you feel that your whole duty lies here in this work to which you have so unselfishly given your life; but I would not hinder that, only try to help as best I could.  Perhaps I have been abrupt, have spoken too soon—­it is only a few weeks since I saw you first, but it seems as though in those few weeks I had come to know you as if I had known you all my life and—­”

But now she interrupted him, shaking her head in a sad little fashion.

“You do not know me,” she said.  “Sometimes I think I do not know myself.  Think!  You do not know where I came from to join the Patriarch here; you have no single shred of knowledge about me; you do not know a single particular of my life before you knew me.”