"But why do you go now? Why have you concealed it from me? Are you afraid of my—of my love? If any one must go it should be I; I have no right to drive you away."
"You are not driving me away; I—it is better that I should go."
"But why go now? Now you are free, and I have a right to claim you."
"No," Helen said in a voice suddenly firm, but which yet showed her inward agitation, "no; there is Ninitta. I have suffered too much myself to be willing to try to come to happiness over any woman's heart. It is better that I should go."
"Ninitta!" Herman burst out. "She has no claim; she will not even care; she—"
"No," interrupted Helen, laying her hand upon his arm. "You cannot say that; you know it is not true. You can see as well as I that Ninitta is pining her life out over your neglect. We are not free to break her heart when you yourself taught her to love."
"I have never been unkind to her," he said, a little defiantly; "except perhaps when she acted like a mad woman and broke your figures."
"In love," returned Helen, smiling faintly, and glad to take refuge in generalities, "sins of commission, as compared with the deadly sin of omission, are mere venial offenses. It is not what you have done, but what you have left undone."
"But what can I do? I cannot force myself to love her?"
"You have made her love you."