I should not come to you as I do after what I heard.  I cannot tell you how dreadfully I suffered while I was listening, but after I had cried so much about it, I felt better, and it seemed to me that it was the best thing that could have happened to me, just to see my actions as they seemed to someone else,—­to someone who was good.  I saw all at once the truth of what I was doing, and it was agony to me to know that you thought so of me.  That was why I could not rest last night until I had told you that I was really unhappy; for it was something that I was unhappy, wasn’t it, Mr. Howard?”

“Yes,” said the other, “it was very much indeed.”

“And oh, I want you to know the truth,” Helen went on swiftly.  “Perhaps it is just egotism on my part, and I have really no right to tell you all about myself in this way; and perhaps you will scorn me when you come to know the whole truth.  But I cannot help telling you about it, so that you may advise me what to do; I was all helpless and lost, and what you said came last night like a wonderful light.  And I don’t care what you think about me if you will only tell me the real truth, in just the same way that you did; for I realized afterwards that it was that which had helped me so.  It was the first time in my life that it had ever happened to me; when you meet people in the world, they only say things that they know will please you, and that does you no good.  I never realized before how a person might go through the world and really never meet with another heart in all his life; and that one can be fearfully lonely, even in a parlor full of people.  Did you ever think of that, Mr. Howard?”

Mr. Howard had fixed his keen eyes upon the girl as she went breathlessly on; she was very pale, and the sorrow through which she had passed had left will think I have been so cold and wicked, that you will soon scorn me altogether.”

“I do not think that is possible,” said her companion, gently, as he saw the girl choking back a sob.

“Well, listen then,” Helen began; but then she stopped again.  “Do you wish me to tell you?” she asked.  “Do you care anything about it at all, or does it seem—­”

“I care very much about it, indeed,” the other answered.

“However dreadful it may seem,” said Helen.  “Oh, please know that while I have been doing it, it has made me utterly wretched, and that I am so frightened now that I can scarcely talk to you; and that if there is anything that I can do—­oh, absolutely anything—­I will do it!” Then the girl bit her lips together and went on with desperate haste, “It’s what you said about what would happen if there were someone else to love me, and to see how very bad I was!”

“There is some such person?” asked the man, in a low voice.

“Yes,” said she.  “It is someone I have known as long as I can remember.  And he loves me very much indeed, I think; and while I was letting myself be tempted in this way he was very sick, and because I knew I was so bad I did not dare go near him; and yesterday when he heard I was going to marry this man, it almost killed him, and I do not know what to fear now.”