“What did he know?”

“That I would rather think that I was bad than that you were.”

“And would you?”

“Yes I would—­now.  Mr. Hannay spared me all he could.  He didn’t tell me that if you had died at Scarby it would have been my fault.  But it would have been.”

He groaned.

“Darling—­you couldn’t say that if you knew anything about it.”

“I know all about it.”

He shook his head.

“Listen, Walter.  You’ve been unfaithful to me—­once, years after I gave you cause.  I’ve been unfaithful to you ever since I married you.  And your unfaithfulness was nothing to mine.  A woman once told me that.  She said you’d only broken one of your marriage vows, and I had broken all of them, except one.  It was true.”

“Who said that to you?”

“Never mind who.  It needed saying.  It was true.  I sinned against the light.  I knew what you were.  You were good and you loved me.  You were unhappy through loving me, and I shut my eyes to it.  I’ve done more harm to you than that poor girl—­Maggie.  You would never have gone to her if I hadn’t driven you.  You loved me.”

“Yes, I loved you.”

She turned to him again; and her eyes searched his for absolution.  “I didn’t know what I was doing.  I didn’t understand.”

“No.  A woman doesn’t, dear.  Not when she’s as good as you.”

At that a sob shook her.  In the passion of her abasement she had cast off all her beautiful spiritual apparel.  Now she would have laid down her crown, her purity, at his feet.

“I thought I was so good.  And I sinned against my husband more that he ever sinned against me.”

He took her hands and tried to draw her to him, but she broke away, and slid to the floor and knelt there, bowing her head upon his knee.  Her hair fell, loosened, upon her shoulders, veiling her.

He stooped and raised her.  His hand smoothed back the hair that hid her face.  Her eyes were closed.

Her drenched eyelids felt his lips upon them.  They opened; and in her eyes he saw love risen to immortality through mortal tears.  She looked at him, and she knew him as she knew her own soul.

The End

By MAY SINCLAIR

THE HELPMATE

The Literary Digest says:  “The novels of May Sinclair make waste paper of most of the fiction of a season.”  This new story, the first written since “The Divine Fire,” will strengthen the author’s reputation.  It has been serialized in The Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Sun says of an early instalment: 

“Miss Sinclair’s new novel, ‘The Helpmate,’ is attracting much attention.  It is a miniature painting of delicacy and skill, reproducing few characters in a small space, with fine sincerity,—­the invalid sister, the man with a past, and the wife with strict convictions.  The riddle is to find which one of the women is the helpmate.  In the vital situation thus far developed the sister is leading in the race.”