"Is it that I am grown hateful to you; is it merely that you see my love and would discourage it? Helen, speak to me,—speak!"
He drew her with tender force towards him; and, holding her firmly by both hands, sought to gaze upon the face that she turned from him,— turned in such despair.
"You do not know," she said at last, struggling for composure,—"you do not know the new claims on me, my altered position, how I am bound, or you would be the last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage, and bid me—bid me—"
"Bid you what?"
"Feel nothing here but duty!" cried Helen, drawing from his clasp both her hands, and placing them firmly on her breast.
"Miss Digby," said Leonard, after a short pause of bitter reflection, in which he wronged, while he thought to divine, her meaning, "you speak of new claims on you, your altered position—I comprehend. You may retain some tender remembrance of the past; but your duty now is to rebuke my presumption. It is as I thought and feared. This vain reputation which I have made is but a hollow sound,—it gives me no rank, assures me no fortune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the Helen of to-day. Be it so—forget what I have said, and forgive me."
This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it appealed. A flash brightened the meek, tearful eyes, almost like the flash of resentment; her lips writhed in torture, and she felt as if all other pain were light compared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her motives which to her simple nature seemed so unworthy of her, and so galling to himself.
A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that word calmed and soothed her.
"Brother!" she said touchingly, "brother!"
The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it was, tender as the voice that spoke it, it imposed a boundary to affection, it came as a knell to hope. He recoiled, shook his head mournfully: "Too late to accept that tie,—too late even for friendship. Henceforth—for long years to come—henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat at your name to thrill at your presence, we two—are strangers."