"Then I will help you."
"Arthur, think what you say. Women have loved as unselfishly as this; but no man, that ever I heard of."
"No man ever did love a woman as I love you. Yes, I would rather help you, though with a sore heart, than hold aloof from you. What have we to do together?"
"Did I not tell you?—to clear his character of a foul stigma, and restore him to England, and to the world which he is so fitted to adorn."
"Yes, yes," said Arthur; "but who is it? Why do I ask, though? He must be a stranger to me."
"No stranger at all," said Helen; "but one who is almost as unjust to you as the world has been to him;" then, fixing her eyes full on him, she said, "Arthur, it is your old friend and tutor, Robert Penfold."
CHAPTER LV.
ARTHUR WARDLAW was thunderstruck; and for some time sat stupidly staring at her. And to this blank gaze succeeded a look of abject terror, which seemed to her strange and beyond the occasion. But this was not all; for, after glaring at her with scared eyes and ashy cheeks a moment or two, he got up and literally staggered out of the room without a word.
He had been taken by surprise, and, for once, all his arts had failed him.