"Oh, man, man!" cried Robert Penfold, "you ask more of me than flesh and blood can bear. What shall I say? What shall I do?"
Helen replied, calmly: "Take my hand, and let us die together, since we cannot live together with honor."
General Rolleston groaned. "For this, then, I have traversed one ocean, and searched another, and found my child. I am nothing to her—nothing. Oh, who would be a father!"
He sat down oppressed with shame and grief, and bowed his stately head in manly but pathetic silence.
"Oh, papa, papa!" cried Helen, "forgive your ungrateful child!" And she kneeled and sobbed, with her forehead on his knees.
Then Robert Penfold, in the midst of his own agony, found room in that great suffering heart of his for pity. He knelt down himself, and prayed for help in this bitter trial. He rose haggard with the struggle, but languid and resigned, like one whose death-warrant has been read.
"Sir," said he, "there is but one way. You must take her home; and I shall stay here."
"Leave you all alone on this island!" said Helen. "Never! If you stay here, I shall stay to comfort you."
"I decline that offer. I am beyond the reach of comfort."
"Think what you do, Robert," said Helen, with unnatural calmness. "If you have no pity on yourself, have pity on us. Would you rob me of the very life you have taken such pains to save? My poor father will carry nothing to England but my dead body. Long before we reach that country I loved so well, and now hate it for its stupidity and cruelty to you, my soul will have flown back to this island to watch over you, Robert. You bid me to abandon you to solitude and despair. Neither of you two love me half as much as I love you both."