Percy was unmanned at the sight of her tears, yet this unexpected outburst filled him with sudden hope. After all, this divine being, this goddess did love him. He forgot everything, save that one fact.
"Helena!" he cried, kneeling before her, and striving to uncover her face—"my darling, my queen—look at me—speak to me."
She pushed him from her, and rose hurriedly.
"Oh!" she sobbed, "you are cruel. Do you want to break two hearts!" Then, as if alarmed at her own words, she added quickly, "You must go away now and leave me. I am all unnerved—I can not give you any more advice to-day. Please go." But as he turned to obey her, she called him back.
"One word only I would say to you now. Do not tell—your friend, what you have told me. Do not tell her that you love another woman. It will be hard enough for her to know that you are to go out of her life, without having that bitter knowledge added."
"God bless you!" he cried, his eyes full of tears. "You are the most generous woman I ever dreamed of in my wildest visions of what was noble."
Even in the supreme hour of her own new found misery—a misery so vast it seemed to fill the whole earth—Helena thought of her rival and tried to save her pain. Truly had Percy said she was one woman in a million.