Helen met Marion as she was leaving the stage-door and stopped to congratulate her on her success in the new part.  Marion was radiant.  To Helen she seemed obstreperously happy and jubilant.

“And, Marion,” Helen began, bravely, “I also want to congratulate you on something else.  You—­you—­neither of you have told me yet,” she stammered, “but I am such an old friend of both that I will not be kept out of the secret.”  At these words Marion’s air of triumphant gayety vanished; she regarded Helen’s troubled eyes closely and kindly.

“What secret, Helen?” she asked.

“I came to the door of Philip’s room the other day when you did not know I was there,” Helen answered, “and I could not help seeing how matters were.  And I do congratulate you both—­and wish you—­oh, such happiness!” Without a word Marion dragged her back down the passage to her dressing-room, and closed the door.

“Now tell me what you mean,” she said.

“I am sorry if I discovered anything you didn’t want known yet,” said Helen, “but the door was open.  Mr. Wimpole had just left you and had not shut it, and I could not help seeing.”

Marion interrupted her with an eager exclamation of enlightenment.

“Oh, you were there, then,” she cried.  “And you?” she asked, eagerly—­“you thought Phil cared for me—­that we are engaged, and it hurt you; you are sorry?  Tell me,” she demanded, “are you sorry?”

Helen drew back and stretched out her hand toward the door.

“How can you!” she exclaimed, indignantly.  “You have no right.”

Marion stood between her and the door.

“I have every right,” she said, “to help my friends, and I want to help you and Philip.  And, indeed, I do hope you are sorry.  I hope you are miserable.  And I’m glad you saw me kiss him.  That was the first and the last time, and I did it because I was happy and glad for him; and because I love him, too, but not in the least in the way he loves you.  No one ever loved any one as he loves you.  And it’s time you found it out.  And if I have helped to make you find it out, I’m glad, and I don’t care how much I hurt you.”

“Marion!” exclaimed Helen, “what does it mean?  Do you mean that you are not engaged; that—­”

“Certainly not,” Marion answered.  “I am going to marry Reggie.  It is you that Philip loves, and I am very sorry for you that you don’t love him.”

Helen clasped Marion’s hands in both of hers.

“But, Marion!” she cried, “I do, oh, I do!”

* * * * *

There was a thick yellow fog the next morning, and with it rain and a sticky, depressing dampness which crept through the window-panes, and which neither a fire nor blazing gas-jets could overcome.

Philip stood in front of the fireplace with the morning papers piled high on the centre-table and scattered over the room about him.

He had read them all, and he knew now what it was to wake up famous, but he could not taste it.  Now that it had come it meant nothing, and that it was so complete a triumph only made it the harder.  In his most optimistic dreams he had never imagined success so satisfying as the reality had proved to be; but in his dreams Helen had always held the chief part, and without her, success seemed only to mock him.