She was speaking kindly, but to the man beside her with his burning heart, her words were hard to hear; he stared at her, shuddering, and then suddenly he clenched his hands and started to his feet.

“Helen,” he cried, “there is but one thing.  I must go!”

“Go?” echoed Helen.

“If I stay here and gaze at you I shall go mad with despair,” he exclaimed incoherently.  “Oh, I shall go mad!  For I do love you, and you talk to me as if I were a child!  Helen, I must get this out of my heart in some way, I cannot stay here.”

“But, Arthur,” the girl protested, “I told father you would stay, and you will make yourself ill, for you have walked all day.”

Every word she uttered was more torment to the other, for it showed him how much his hopes were gone to wreck.  He rushed across the room and opened the door; then, however, he paused, as if that had cost him all his resolution.  He gazed at the girl with a look of unspeakable yearning, his face white, and his limbs trembling beneath him.

“You wish me to go, Helen?” he exclaimed.

“Wish you!” exclaimed Helen, who was watching him in alarm.  “Of course not; I want you to stay and see father, and—­”

“And hear you tell me that you do not love me!  Oh, Helen, how can you say it again?  Can you not see what you have done to me?”

“Arthur!” cried the girl.

“Yes, what you have done to me!  You have made me so that I dare not stay near you.  You must love me, Helen, oh, some time you must!” And he came toward her again, stretching out his arms to her.  As she sprang back, frowning, he stopped and stood for an instant, half sinking; then he whirled about and darted out of the door.

Helen was scarcely able to realize at first that he was gone, but when she looked out she saw that he was already far down the street, walking swiftly.  For a moment she thought of calling him; but she checked herself, and closed the door quietly instead, after which she walked slowly across the room.  In the center of it she stopped still, gazing in front of her thoughtfully, and looking very grave indeed.  “That is dreadful,” she said slowly.  “I had no idea of such a thing.  What in the world am I to do?”

There was a tall mirror between the two windows of the room, and Helen went toward it and stood in front of it, gazing earnestly at herself.  “Is it true, then, that I am so very beautiful?” she mused.  “And even Arthur must fall in love with me!”

Helen’s face was still flushed with the glory of her ride with the Storm-King; she smoothed back the long strands of golden hair that had come loose, and then she looked at herself again.  “It is dreadful,” she said once more, half aloud, “I do not think I ever felt so nervous in my life, and I don’t know what to do; everything I did to please him seemed only to make him more miserable.  I wanted him to be happy with me; I wanted him to stay with me.”  And she walked away frowning, and seated herself at the piano and began peevishly striking at the keys.  “I am going to write to him and tell him that he must get over that dreadfulness,” she muttered after a while, “and come back and be friends with me.  Oakdale will be too stupid without him all summer, and I should be miserable.”