"Exposure must be avoided at any cost," cried Helena, her voice choked with tears, her heart torn anew over this additional and unexpected sorrow. "Madame Percy was a dear friend of mine. I know her entire history; it is most sad, most unfortunate, but it must not be given to the public; it must not be discussed by curious people who did not know her as I knew her—to love and to pity."
"It need not be given to the public," Homer Orton answered, firmly. "But you must go at once and take charge of her effects. The knowledge that she has friends in the city will prevent the sensation-seekers from ferreting out her history. You can give the reporters such facts as you choose concerning her life, if they approach you, and I will use my influence to prevent anything unpleasant from creeping into print."
And so, while Percy believed Helena to be sleeping, she performed the last sad rites for the woman who had been her dearest friend and her unintentional foe. With the exception of faithful Lorette, she was the only mourner to shed tears as the beautiful body was lowered to its last resting-place. Tears made more scalding and bitter by the thought of another burial drawing near, where she must officiate in the lasting character of a life-long mourner.
A story which closes with a suicide and a death is not a pleasant story to relate, or to read. Yet we who peruse our daily papers, know that such stories are very true to life.
It is gratifying to me, however, that I need not complete my narrative with a double tragedy.
Percy did not die.
It might have been owing to the mental condition produced by the knowledge that Helena was really his wife, or it might have been due to the skill of his physician; but certain it is, that he recovered—recovered, to realize that he had gained a wife almost by "false pretenses;" and that Dolores was no longer in existence upon the earth where she came an undesired child, and from which she went forth a suffering, desperate woman.
Shocked and almost crazed with the knowledge of this tragedy, Percy called Helena to him, a few hours after she had imparted the sad information.