thing that will make me happy now--to know that. I--I have written a
little note to Robert about it, to be given to him. Oh, if I could only
have lived to help--I should have tried so hard to be worthy to have a
part in it. Not like you, dear, with your sweetness and nobleness, for
God seems to have singled you out for this--but just to have had a
little part. How wonderful it would have been, bringing peace and health
and gladness where only sorrow and misery was before, and--and--"

Mrs. Thornton's eyes closed, and she lay for a moment quiet.

A blackness seemed to settle upon Helena--and how cold it was! She
shivered. Her dark eyes, wide, tearless now, stared, startled, dazed, at
the white face on the pillow crowned with its mass of golden hair. Her
sweetness! Her nobleness! Helena's lips half parted and her breath came
in quick, fierce, little gasps--it seemed as though she had been struck
a blow that she could not quite understand because somehow it had numbed
her senses--only there was a hurt that curiously, strangely seemed to
mock as it stabbed with pain.

"There is Robert"--Mrs. Thornton spoke again--"I am sure he will do as I
have asked him to do about this, but--you can have a great deal of
influence with him. It--it perhaps may seem a strange thing to say, but
I pray that you two may be brought very close to each other. Robert
needs a good, true woman so much in his life--and I--we--we--my
illness--we have never had a home in its truest sense. Yes, it is
strange for me perhaps to talk like this--but it is in my heart. I would
like to think of you both engaged in this wonderful work together."

Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton stopped--and Helena, from
gazing at the other's pallid countenance in a sort of involuntary,