"The truth, I hope."
"He is scarcely likely to say to the guest he has himself invited that you think him a murderer," answered her friend, smiling again, "and I am not sure that he would even look at this quite so severely as you do."
"How else can he look at it?" demanded Edith. "How else can any one look at it? Isn't it murder to take human life, and if one does not prevent suicide when he might, isn't it the same as if he did it himself?"
"We will not get into a discussion," Helen replied gently. "I feel about it as you do; though I believe very differently. But I see perfectly well how a man might be strictly honest in thinking that it was the privilege of any human being to lay aside his life when he is weary of it; and I do not presume to condemn others for feeling what I only think I believe."
"Think you believe!" cried the other in horror. "You do not think you believe that murder is right?"
"Assuredly not; but as there are so many related points upon which we do not agree, would it not be better to talk of this particular case than of general belief?"
"But it is impossible for any one to believe as you say," persisted
Edith; "simply impossible. No one can believe that wrong is right."
"But each has his own standard."
Against this Edith protested, but Helen returned no answer. She regretted being involved in such a debate, and resolved to let the discussion go no further. They sat in silence a moment, and then Edith again spoke.
"I do not know what to do," she said. "Of course Arthur cannot know that man any longer. You were in Paris at the time Frontier died, were you not? Did you ever know——"