“You are going to help us, aren’t you, Helen dear?” said Sadie, tremulously. “I would tell Auntie about it only she would want a tremendous wedding and all that. Whitney and I both hate big weddings. I am too timid and he is too nervous––says he might swallow the ring and choke to death. You will now, Helen darling?”
There was a little sob in Sadie’s voice and Helen surrendered.
“You are doing a very rash thing, Sadie,” Helen lectured, striving to draw her brows into an expression of impressive solemnity. “My own terrible experience should have been a lesson to you––a warning––a”–––
“But it was Whitney Barnes who saved you, Helen!” cried Sadie, exultantly. “You owe it all to him and that is why I began to love him!”
“Nonsense!” retorted Helen sharply. “Mr. Barnes had nothing whatever to do with it. All he did was to get himself handcuffed and run about absurdly trying to be unlocked.”
“But he was on watch and planned and planned,” Sadie defended her hero.
“Sadie Burton, I say that Whitney Barnes had nothing whatever to do with it. He was merely an instrument. Travers Gladwin did it all. I owe everything to him––everything! He would have gone to jail for me, sacrificed all his wonderful paintings––oh, Sadie, it was wonderful of him!”
It was Sadie who was thunderstruck now by the ardor in her cousin’s voice. Her amazement soon gave way to a beaming smile, and she mumbled as she turned to her dressing table, “I do believe she is in love with him.”