CHAPTER VI.

Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining; for
his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when his
touch was on the handle, he drew back. Child though the mourner was, her
sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex.
Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him from
the threshold. To have crossed it then would have seemed to him
profanation. So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard the
sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep.

But the next morning, when he heard his neighbour astir, he knocked
gently at her door: there was no answer. He entered softly, and saw her
seated very listlessly in the centre of the room,--as if it had no
familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have, her hands drooping on
her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he approached
and spoke to her.

Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears seemed dried up;
and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him. At
length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and the
first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the
overflow of her downcast eyes.

By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she told
him in broken whispers her simple story. But what moved him the most
was, that beyond her sense of loneliness she did not seem to feel her own
unprotected state. She mourned the object she had nursed and heeded and
cherished, for she had been rather the protectress than the protected to