David stopped and stood gazing ahead of him thoughtfully; when he continued his voice was lower and more solemn.  “These things are almost too sacred to talk of, Helen,” he said; “but there is one doubt that I have known about this, one thing that has made me wonder if there ought not to be another world after all.  I never sympathized with any man’s longing for heaven, but I can understand how a man might be haunted by some fearful baseness of his own self,—­something which long years of effort had taught him he could not ever expiate by the strength of his own heart,—­and how he could pray that there might be some place where rightness might be won at last, cost what it would.”

The man’s tone had been so strange as he spoke that it caused Helen to start; suddenly she came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders and gazed into his eyes.  “David,” she whispered, “listen to me a moment.”

“Yes, dear,” he said, “what is it?”

“Was it because of yourself that you said those words?”

He was silent for a moment, gazing into her anxious eyes; then he bowed his head and said in a faint voice, “Yes, dear, it was because of myself.”

And the girl, becoming suddenly very serious, went on, “Do you remember, David, a long time ago—­the time that I was leaving Aunt Polly’s—­that you told me how you knew what it was to have something very terrible on one’s conscience?  I have not ever said anything about that, but I have never forgotten it.  Was it that that you thought of then?”

“Yes, dear, it was that,” answered the other, trembling slightly.

Helen stooped down upon her knees and put her arms about him, gazing up pleadingly into his face.  “Dearest David,” she whispered, “is it right to refuse to tell me about that sorrow?”

There was a long silence, after which the man replied slowly, “I have not ever refused to tell you, sweetheart; it would be very fearful to tell, but I have not any secrets from you; and if you wished it, you should know.  But, dear, it was long, long ago, and nothing can ever change it now.  It would only make us sad to know it, so why should we talk of it?”

He stopped, and Helen gazed long and earnestly into his face.  “David,” she said, “it is not possible for me to imagine you ever doing anything wrong, you are so good.”

“Perhaps,” said David, “it is because you are so good yourself.”  But Helen interrupted him at that with a quick rejoinder:  “Do you forget that I too have a sorrow upon my conscience?” Afterwards, as she saw that the eager remark caused the other to smile in spite of himself, she checked him gravely with the words, “Have you really forgotten so soon?  Do you suppose I do not ever think now of how I treated poor Arthur, and how I drove away from me the best friend of my girlhood?  He wrote me that he would think of me no more, but, David, sometimes I wonder if it were not just an angry boast, and if he might not yet be lonely and wretched, somewhere in this great cold world where I cannot ever find him or help him.”