shakin' like he had a fit when he gets here. Say, Helena, don't youse go
ter-night."

Helena made no answer for a moment. Thoughts, a world of them, confused
her, crowded upon her, as they had ever since Madison had left her room
a few hours ago--and the future was as some dread, bewildering maze
through which she had tried to stumble and grope her way--and had lost
herself ever deeper. How full of utter, miserable, bitter irony it was
that this thing, unscrupulous and shameful, that they had created in
their guilt should have brought the beauty and the glory and the
yearning of a new life to her--and yet should chain her remorselessly
to the old! True, she had broken with Madison, irrevocably, forever, she
supposed, it could not be other than that, for the ugly bond between
them was severed--but the game still went on! In repentance, on her
bended knees, sobbing as a tired and worn-out child, she could ask for
forgiveness; but the double life, the duplicity, by reason of the very
nature in which they had fashioned this iniquitous monster, still went
on, and like some hideous octopus reached out its waving, feeling
tentacles to encircle her--the Patriarch there; the world-wide
publicity, those poor creatures upon whose misery and whose suffering,
upon whose frantic, frenzied snatching out at hope they had preyed and
fed and gorged themselves; the life itself that she had taken up, in its
minutiæ, in its care of this great-souled, great-hearted man so dear to
her now, the life itself because it was what it was, changed though she
herself might be, though her soul cried out against it in its new-found
purity--all this still held her fast! The end--she could not see the
end. What would Madison do--and there was Thornton. Thornton! She caught
her breath a little. Yes; she had promised Thornton she would see him
to-night--she knew well enough why he wanted to see her--last night had
told her that--he loved her. Her face softened. Last night--it seemed a