He had not implicated Wilford in any way; but Helen read it all, saying more to herself than him:  “And she was at the opera.  Wilford must have seen her, and that is why he left so suddenly, and why he has appeared so absent and nervous to-day, as if expecting something.  Excuse me,” she suddenly added, drawing her hand away and stepping back a little, “I forgot that I was talking as if you knew.”

“I do know more than you suppose—­that is, I know human nature—­and I know Will better than I did that morning when I first met you,” Mark said, glancing at the freed hand he wished so much to take again.

But Helen kept her hands to herself, and answered him.

“You did right under the circumstances.  It would have been unpleasant for us all had she happened here to-night.  I thank you, Mr. Ray—­you and your mother, too—­more than I can express.  I will see her early to-morrow morning.  Tell her so, please, and again I thank you.”

There were tears in Helen’s soft brown eyes, and they glittered like diamonds as she looked even more than spoke her thanks to the young man, who, for another look like that, would have driven Aunt Betsy amid the gayest crowd that ever frequented the Park, and sworn she was his blood relation!  A few words from Mrs. Banker confirmed what Mark had said, and it was not strange if that night Miss Lennox, usually so entertaining, was a little absent, for her thoughts were up in that chamber on Twenty-third Street, where Aunt Betsy sat alone, but not lonely, for her mind was very busy with all she had been through since leaving Silverton, while something kept suggesting to her that it would have been wiser and better to have stayed at home than to have ventured where she was so sadly out of place.  This last came gradually to Aunt Betsy as she thought the matter over, and remembered Wilford as he had appeared each time he came to Silverton.

“I ain’t like him; I ain’t like this Miss Banker; I ain’t like anybody,” she whispered.  “I’m nothin’ but a homely, old-fashioned woman, without larnin’, without nothin’.  I might know I wasn’t wanted,” and a rain of tears fell over the wrinkled face as she uttered this tirade against herself, standing before the long mirror and inspecting the image it gave back of a plain, unpolished countrywoman, not much resembling Mrs. Banker, it must be confessed, nor much resembling the gay young ladies she had seen at the opera the previous night.  “I won’t go near Katy,” she continued; “it will only mortify her, and I don’t want to make her trouble.  The poor thing’s face looked as if she had it now, and I won’t add to it.  I’ll start for home to-morrow.  There’s Miss Smith, in Springfield, will keep me overnight, and Katy shan’t be bothered.”

When this decision was reached Aunt Betsy felt a great deal better, and taking the Bible from the table, she sat down again before the fire, opening, as by a special Providence, to the chapter where hewers of wood and drawers of water are mentioned as being necessary to mankind, each filling his appointed place.