He was aware at last, dimly, that Gerald had moved, had come round the table, and was leaning on it beside him. Then Gerald put his hand on Franklin's hand. The touch drew him up out of his depths. He raised his head, keeping his face hidden, and he clasped Gerald's hand for a moment. Then Gerald said brokenly: 'You mustn't write. You mustn't do anything for me. You must let me take my own chances—and if I've none left, it will be what I deserve.'

These words, like air breathed in after long suffocation under water, cleared Franklin's mind. He shook his head, and he found Gerald's hand again while he said, able now, as the light grew upon him, to think:

'I want to write. I want you to have all the chances you can.'

'I don't deserve them,' said Gerald.

'I don't know about that,' said Franklin, 'I don't know about that at all. And besides'—and now he found something of his old whimsicality to help his final argument—'let's say, if you'd rather, that Helen deserves them. Let's say that it's for Helen's sake that I want you to have every chance.'

CHAPTER XXXII.

Helen received Franklin's letter by the first post next morning. She read it in bed, where she had remained ever since parting from him, lying there with closed eyes in the drowsy apathy that had fallen upon her.

'Dear Helen,'—Franklin wrote, and something in the writing pained her even before she read the words—'Gerald Digby has been with me here. Your aunt has been telling him things. He knows that I care for you and what it all meant yesterday. It has been a very painful experience for him, as you may imagine, and the way he took it made me like him very much. It's because of that that I'm writing to you now. The thing that tormented me most was the idea that, perhaps, with all my deficiencies, I could give you more than he could. I hadn't a very high opinion of him, you know. I felt you might be safer with me. But now, from what I've seen, I'm sure that he is the man for you. I understand how you could have loved him for all your life. He's not as big as you are, nor as strong; he hasn't your character; but you'll make him grow—and no one else can, for he loves you with his whole heart, and he's a broken man.

'Dear Helen, I know what it feels like now. You're withered and burnt out. It's lasted too long to be felt any longer and you believe it's dead. But it isn't dead, Helen; I'm sure it isn't. Things like that don't die unless something else comes and takes their place. It's withered, but it will grow again. See him; be kind to him, and you'll find out. And even if you can't find out yet, even if you think it's all over, look at it this way. You know our talk about marriage and how you were willing to marry me, not loving me; well, look at it this way, for his sake, and for mine. He needs you more than anything; he'll be nothing, or less and less, without you; with you he'll be more and more. Think of his life. You've got responsibility for that, Helen; you've let him depend on you always—and you've got responsibility, too, for what's happened now. You told him—I'm not blaming you—I understand—I think you were right; but you changed things for him and made him see what he hadn't seen before; nothing can ever be the same for him again; you mustn't forget that; your friendship is spoiled for him, after what you've done. So at the very least you can feel sorry for him and feel like a mother to him, and marry him for that—as lots of women do.

'Now I'm going to be very egotistical, but you'll know why. Think of my life, dear Helen. We won't hide from what we know. We know that I love you and that to give you up—even if, in a way, I had to—was the greatest sacrifice of my life. Now, what I put to you is this: Is it going to be for nothing—I mean for nothing where you are concerned? If I'm to think of you going on alone with your heart getting harder and drier every year, and everything tender and trustful dying out of you—I don't see how I can bear it.

'So what I ask you is to try to be happy; what I ask you is to try to make him happy; just look at it like that; try to make him happy and to help him to grow to be a fine, big person, and then you'll find out that you are growing, too, in all sorts of ways you never dreamed of.

'When you get this, write to him and tell him that he may come. And when he is with you, be kind to him. Oh—my dear Helen—I do beg it of you. Put it like this—be kind to me and try.—
Your affectionate

Franklin.'

When Helen had read this letter she did not weep, but she felt as if some hurt, almost deeper than she could endure, was being inflicted on her. It had begun with the first sight of Franklin's letter; the writing of it had looked like hard, steady breathing over some heart-arresting pain. Franklin's suffering flowed into her from every gentle, careful sentence; and to Helen, so unaware, till now, of any one's suffering but her own, this sharing of Franklin's was an experience new and overpowering. No tears came, while she held the letter and looked before her intently, and it was not as if her heart softened; but it seemed to widen, as if some greatness, irresistible and grave, forced a way into it. It widened to Franklin, to the thought of Franklin and to Franklin's suffering; its sorrow and its compassion were for Franklin; and as it received and enshrined him, it shut Gerald out. There was no room for Gerald in her heart.