"You have been a better brother already," replied Helen; "but you do not say, if you are ill; and yet I am sure you are, for you are so changed."
"I have had much to pain me, Helen," answered Morley Ernstein; "very much."
"I know it--I know it," said Helen; "and it has been our doing--Morley."
The last word she pronounced after a moment's hesitation, and in so low a tone that he scarcely heard it; but yet the blood came up into her cheek, as if she had told him that she loved him.
"It was not on that account, Helen, that I have grieved," he replied. "Fortune could never disturb my night's repose; but there have been many other things pressing heavily upon my mind."
Helen cast down her eyes, and replied not; but the paleness that crept over her countenance might well shew that there were some emotions busy at her heart. Morley Ernstein was silent, too, for there was a light breaking upon him, to which he would have fain been blind. At length, Helen spoke, saying, with an effort--"I was in hopes I should have heard of your being very happy."
"It is quite the reverse, Helen," he answered. "Those bright days, which you once saw me enjoy, are past away for ever, and I have nothing left but to fly from myself, and from her who might have made my happiness, and has made me miserable."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Helen; "do not say so."
"Yes, indeed!" replied Morley Ernstein. "It is on that account I quit Rome to-morrow. Are you aware that she is in this city?"
"Who?--Juliet Carr?" exclaimed Helen.