It was only when David had quite worn himself out that he seemed to hear her pleading voice; then he looked at her, and for the first time through his own grief caught sight of hers.  There was such a look of helpless woe upon Helen’s face that he put out his hand to her and whispered faintly, “Oh, poor little girl, what have you done that you should suffer so?” As Helen drew closer to him, clinging to his hand in fright, he went on, “Can you ever forgive me for this horror—­forgive me that I dared to forget it, that I dared to marry you?”

The girl’s answer was a faint moan, “David, David, have mercy on me!” He gazed at her for a moment, reading still more of her suffering.

“Helen,” he asked, “you see what has come upon me—­can you ask me not to be wretched, can you ask me still to live?  What can I do for such a crime,—­when I look at this wreck of a soul, what comfort can I hope to find?” And the girl, her heart bursting with grief, could only clasp his hands in hers and gaze into his eyes; there was no word she could think of to say to him, and so for a long time the two remained in silence, David again fixing his eyes upon the woman, who seemed to be sinking into a kind of stupor.

When he looked up once more it was because Helen was whispering in his ear, a new thought having come to her, “David, perhaps I might be able to help you yet.”

The man replied in a faint, gasping voice, “Help me?  How?” And the girl answered, “Come with me,” and rose weakly to her feet, half lifting him also.  He gazed at the woman and saw that she was lying still, and then he did as Helen asked.  She led him gently into the other room, away from the fearful sight, and the two sat down, David limp and helpless, so that he could only sink down in her arms with a groan.  “Poor, poor David,” she whispered, in a voice of infinite pity; “oh, my poor David!”

“Then you do not scorn me, Helen?” the man asked in a faint, trembling voice, and went on pleading with her, in words so abject and so wretched that they wrung the girl’s heart more than ever.

“David, how can you speak to me so?” she cried, “you who are all my life?” And then she added with swift intensity, “Listen to me, David, it cannot be so bad as that, I know it!  Will you not tell me, David?  Tell me all, so that I may help you!” So she went on pleading with him gently, until at last the man spoke again, in faltering words.

“Helen,” he said, “I was only a boy; God knows that is one excuse, if it is the only one.  I was only seventeen, and she was no more.”

“Who was she, David?” the girl asked.

“She lived in a village across the mountains from here, near where our home used to be.  She was a farmer’s daughter, and she was beautiful—­oh, to think that that woman was once a beautiful girl, and innocent and pure!  But we were young, we loved each other, and we had no one to warn us; it was so long ago that it seems like a dream to me now, but we sinned, and I took her for mine; then I went home to tell my father, to tell him that she was my wife, and that I must marry her.  And oh, God, she was a farmer’s daughter, and I was a rich man’s son, and the cursed world knows nothing of human souls!  And I must not marry her—­I found all the world in arms against it—–­”