He said nothing, soothing her as a mother might have done.
'Franklin, I loved him!' she sobbed. 'It was real: it was the reallest thing that ever happened to me. I only sent for you because I knew that he didn't love me. I loved him too much to go on if he didn't love me. What I have suffered, Franklin. And now he is going to marry Helen. He loves Helen. And I am not worthy of you.'
'Poor child,' said Franklin. He pressed his lips to her hair.
'You know, Franklin?'
'Yes, I know, dear.'
'I am not worthy of you,' Althea repeated. 'I have been weak and selfish. I've used you—to hide from myself—because I was too frightened to stand alone and give up things.'
'Well, you shan't stand alone any more,' said Franklin.
'But, Franklin—dear—kind Franklin—why should you marry me? I don't love you—not as I loved him. I only wanted you because I was afraid. I must tell you all the truth. I only want you now, and cling to you like this, because I am afraid, because I can't go on alone and have nothing to live for.'
'You'll have me now, dear,' said Franklin. 'You'll try that, won't you, and perhaps you'll find it more worth while than you think.'
Something more now than fear and loneliness and penitence was piercing her. His voice: poor Franklin's voice. What had she done to him? What had they all done to him among them? And dimly, like the memory of a dream, yet sharply, too, as such memory may be sharp, there drifted for Althea the formless fear that hovered—formless yet urgent—when Franklin had come to her in her desperate need. It hovered, and it seemed to shape itself, as if through delicate curves of smoke, into Helen's face—Helen's eyes and smile. Helen, charm embodied; Helen, all the things that Franklin could never be; all the things she had believed till now, Franklin could never feel or need. What did she know of Franklin? so the fear whispered softly. What had Helen done to Franklin? What had it meant to Franklin, that strange mingling with magic?