"Impossible!" ejaculated two voices.
"I don't think so. Anyway, it's worth trying; and if it works it'll mean—everything." The last word was so low it was scarcely above a whisper.
"But—yourself, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Thayer. "Where do you come in? What part have you in this—play?"
The rich red surged from neck to brow. The doctor and his sister could see that, though they could not see Helen Denby's face. It was turned quite away. There was a moment's silence; then, a little breathlessly, came the answer.
"I—don't—know. I suppose that will be—the 'curtain,' won't it? And—I've never been sure of the ending—yet. But—" She hesitated; then suddenly she turned, her eyes shining and deeply tender. "Don't you see? It's the only way, after all. I can't very well go up to Dalton and ring his doorbell and say, 'Here, behold your wife and daughter. Won't you please take us in?'—can I? Though at first, when I heard of his father's death and thought of him so lonely there, I did want to do—just that. But I knew that wasn't best, even before your letter came telling me—what he said.
"But now—why, this is just what I've wanted from the first—to show Betty to him, some time, when he didn't dream who she was. I wanted to know that he wasn't—ashamed of her. And this (his wanting a secretary) gave me a better chance than I ever thought I could have. Why, people, dear people, don't you see?—with this I shan't mind now one bit all these long, long years of waiting. Won't you help me—please? I can't, of course, do it without your help."
The doctor threw up both his hands—his old gesture of despair.
"Help you? Of course we'll help you, just as we did before—to get the moon, if you ask for it. I feel like a comic opera and a movie farce all in one; but never mind. I'll do it. Now, what is it I am to do?"
Helen relaxed into such radiant joyousness and relief, that she looked almost like the girl Burke Denby had married nineteen years before.
"You dear! I knew you would!" she breathed.