“There is Robert”—­Mrs. Thornton spoke again—­“I am sure he will do as I have asked him to do about this, but—­you can have a great deal of influence with him.  It—­it perhaps may seem a strange thing to say, but I pray that you two may be brought very close to each other.  Robert needs a good, true woman so much in his life—­and I—­we—­we—­my illness—­we have never had a home in its truest sense.  Yes, it is strange for me perhaps to talk like this—­but it is in my heart.  I would like to think of you both engaged in this wonderful work together.”

Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton stopped—­and Helena, from gazing at the other’s pallid countenance in a sort of involuntary, frightened fascination, dropped her head suddenly upon the bed-spread and hid her face.

Mrs. Thornton’s hand found Helena’s head and rested upon it.

“I would like to see Robert happy,” she murmured, after a little silence.  “Riches do not make happiness—­they are so sad and empty a thing when the heart is empty.  I know he would be happy with you—­he has spoken so much of you lately—­perhaps—­perhaps—­”

Mrs. Thornton’s voice was very faint—­the words reached Helena plainly enough as words, but they seemed to reach her consciousness in an unreal, unnatural, blunted way, coma-like—­pregnant of significance, yet with the significance itself elusive, evading her.

“A good woman,” whispered Mrs. Thornton, “I have tried to be a good woman—­but—­but my life, our wealth, our position has made it so artificial.  You have never known these things, dear—­and so you are just as God made you—­good woman, so pure, so wonderful in your freshness and your innocence.  Robert’s life has been so barren—­so barren.  I would like to know that—­that it will not always be so.  Oh, if it could only be that you and he should carry on this great, glad work together—­and love should come into his life—­and yours—­and sunshine—­promise me, dear, that—­”

The voice died away.  Helena, with head still buried, waited for Mrs. Thornton to speak again.  It seemed she waited for a great length of time—­and yet there was no such thing as time.  It seemed as though she were transported to a place of great and intense blackness where it was miserably cold and chill, and she stood alone and lost, and strove to find her way—­and there was no way—­only blackness everywhere, immeasurable.  She lifted her head suddenly, desperately, to shake the unreality from her—­and her eyes fell upon the gentle face, peaceful, smiling, calm, and so still—­and a startled, frightened cry rang from her lips.

There was the quick, hurried rush of some one coming into the room, and the nurse brushed by her and bent instantly over the bed—­after that, quite soon after that it seemed, and yet it might have been quite a little while, she found herself outside in the corridor and the nurse was speaking to her.

“Sam is still out there,” said Miss Harvey gently.  “I told him to keep the team.  You cannot help me, and I want you to go home, dear.  And will you ask Sam to go for Mr. Madison at the hotel on the way back—­I do not know who else I can call upon for advice.”