Nothing short of the very plainest speaking had been able to keep Mrs. Creery from forcing herself into Helen's presence. But Mrs. Home, Mr. Latimer, and Dr. Malone, were as the three hundred heroic Greeks who kept the pass at Thermopylæ. They formed a body-guard she could not pass.
Every one, even the last-mentioned matron, desired to have Helen under their roof. Mrs. King came up from Viper, all the way in the mid-day sun, to say that, "Of course, every one must see, that the farther Miss Denis was from old associations, the better, and that her room was ready." Mrs. Graham arrived from Chatham with the same story; but in the end, Helen went to Mrs. Home, going across with her after dark, like a girl walking in a trance. Sleep, kind sleep, did come to her, thanks to a strong opiate, and thus, for a time, she and her new acquaintance, grief, were parted. The pretty bungalow on the side of the hill, so bright and full of life only last night, was dark and silent now. One inmate slept a sleep to deaden sorrow, the other lay alone upon the distant mainland, under the silent stars, within sound of the sea—and the new cemetery contained its first grave.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"WAS IT POSSIBLE!"
"Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows,
Like the wave.
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of man;
Love lends life a little grace,
A few sad smiles; and then,
Both are laid in one cold place,