There was a look in Mr. Harrison’s eyes as he gazed at her just then which made him seem to her a different sort of a man,—­as indeed he was.  She answered very gently.  “Mr. Harrison,” she said, “it would be a great happiness to me to know that anyone felt so about me.  But I could never marry you; I do not love you.”

“And you do not think,” asked the other, “that you could ever come to love me, no matter how long I might wait?”

“I do not think so,” Helen said in a low voice.  “I wish that you would not ever think of me so.”

“It is very easy to say that,” the man answered, pleadingly, “but how am I to do it?  For everything that I have seems cheap compared with the thought of you.  Why should I go on with the life I have been leading, heaping up wealth that I do not know how to use, and that makes me no better and no happier?  I thought of you as a new motive for going on, Helen, and you must know that a man cannot so easily change his feelings.  For I really loved you, and I do love you still, and I think that I always must love you.”

Helen’s own suffering had made her alive to other people’s feelings, and the tone of voice in which he spoke those words moved her very much.  She leaned over and laid her hand upon his,—­something which she would not have thought she could ever do.

“Mr. Harrison,” she said, “I cannot tell you how much it hurts me to have you speak to me so, for it makes me see more than ever how cruelly unfeeling I have been, and how much I have wronged you.  It was for that I wished to beg you to forgive me, to forgive me just out of the goodness of your heart, for I cannot offer any excuse for what I did.  It makes me quite wretched to have to say that, and to know that others are suffering because of my selfishness; if I had any thought of the sacredness of the beauty God has given me, I would never have let you think of me as you did, and caused you the pain that I have.  But you must forgive me, Mr. Harrison, and help me, for to think of your being unhappy about me also would be really more than I could bear.  Sometimes when I think of the one great sorrow that I have already upon my conscience, I feel that I do not know what I am to do; and you must go away and forget about me, for my sake if not for your own.  I really cannot love anyone; I do not think that I am fit to love anyone; I only do not want to make anyone else unhappy.”

And Helen stopped again, and pressed her hand upon Mr. Harrison’s imploringly.  He sat gazing at her in silence for a minute, and then he said, slowly:  “When you put it so, it is very hard for me to say anything more.  If you are only sure that that is your final word—­that there is really no chance that you could ever love me,—­”

“I am perfectly sure of it,” the girl answered; “and because I know how cruel it sounds, it is harder for me to say than for you to hear.  But it is really the truth, Mr. Harrison.  I do not think that you ought to see me again until you are sure that it will not make you unhappy.”