"I remain,
"Yours sincerely,
"GILBERT LISLE."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Captain Durand, "that smart cutter of his is the very thing for you, Em, and the fishing-tackle will suit me down to the ground. I like Lisle uncommonly, but," grinning significantly as he spoke, "this note of his, consoles me wonderfully for his departure."
Yes, so it might—but who was to console Helen? She felt like some drowning wretch, from whom their only plank has just been torn, or as a shipwrecked sailor, who had painfully clambered out of reach of the waves and been once more cruelly tossed back among them.
It was only now at this moment of piercing anguish that she thoroughly realized how much she had been clinging to Gilbert Lisle's promise, how steadfastly she had believed in his words, "I shall come back."
With a feeling of utter desolation in her heart, with her ideal and her hopes alike shattered, what a task was hers to maintain an outward appearance of indifference and composure!
After a time Captain Durand went off to the mess, to hear the news, and to look over the papers, leaving the two ladies tête-à-tête; his wife affected to peruse her letters, reading such little scraps of them aloud from time to time as she thought might amuse her companion, but she was not enjoying them as usual. That look she had surprised in the girl's eyes, haunted her painfully. She longed to go over to her, and put her arm round her neck and whisper in her ear,—
"What is it? Tell me all about it, confide in me."
But somehow she dared not, bold as she was.—Recent grief had aged Helen, and given her a gravity far beyond her years, and as she looked across at that marble face, those downcast eyes, and busy fingers, she found her kind, warm heart fail her. Whatever the hurt was, ay, were it mortal, that girl meant to bear it alone.