"It is a very worthy object to which you pledge yourself," she observed, with scorn. "But I am not afraid of a man who is cowardly enough to threaten a woman with his enmity because she rejects and despises what he calls his love."
Her voice had always a peculiar quality of clearness in speaking, but when she was at all excited it was like silver in its resonance. Therefore the words distinctly reached the ears of one who was coming toward them, and the next instant Helen's pale face and startled eyes rose before her.
She uttered a sharp exclamation, which stopped the words that were rising to Rathborne's lips; and, wrenching her arm from his grasp, she sprang forward to her cousin's side. "Helen!" she cried, unconscious almost of what she said, "what are you doing here?"
It is not always the people who seem most weak whom emergency proves to be so. At this moment Helen exhibited a self-control which would have surprised even those who knew her best. She was pale as marble, and her violet eyes had still their startled, piteous look; but she answered, quietly:—
"I came to look for you. It was foolish—I will go back now. Don't trouble to come with me."
But as she turned, Marion seized her arm. "Helen!" she exclaimed, "don't misjudge me! Don't think that this is my fault!"
"No," replied Helen, with the same strange quietness; "I heard what you said. I don't blame—any one. I suppose it was natural."
Then it was Rathborne's turn. "Helen," he said, coming up to her, and speaking with an attempt at the old tone of authority; "you must listen to me."
But she turned away from him with something like a shudder. "No," she said, "do not ask me—not now. I may be weak, but not so weak as not to understand—this. Don't come with me. Frank will look after me and take me home. That is all I want."
She moved away through the beautiful greenery, a slender, lovely figure, with drooping head; and the two whom she left behind watched her with one sensation at least in common—that of a keen sense of guilt, which for the moment no other feeling was strong enough to stifle.