Was there a change for an instant in the expression of the woman's face? If so, it was the shadow of a smile that flitted across it—the old, sphinx-like smile. But perhaps it was not there. If so, it was only suggested.
For the rest of the journey there is silence between the two men. The woman is the same.
When they leave the train at the little station there is a conveyance waiting to take them to the cottage. Braine carries Helen as he has done before.
The three drive silently down the road in the twilight. The two men are thinking of a scene years ago, in which the same characters figured, but oh, so differently!
As Everet glances at the silent figure through the dusk, he feels his whole body shaken by some powerful emotion. That woman, ominously still, with white face, deeply brooding, relentless eyes, haggard, shadowy and worn, is the woman he once admired as the most perfect type of what womanhood was meant by God to be; now she is what sin alone can make a woman, and he remembers with exquisite remorse that the sin which wrought this ruin was in part his.
The two men are thinking of that lost time. The woman—who can guess what the woman is thinking?
They drive through the lane to the house. Apparently neither scene nor time, nor circumstance is impressing her. She looks off over the purple hills into nothingness.
Braine lifts her out and carries her within the cottage, placing her gently in a chair. He says eagerly, while unfastening her wraps:
"Things will not be like this, you know, dearest. In just a few days it will be different."
He speaks hurriedly as though anxious to convey to her that she is not to live in poverty; as though to reassure her; as though to ward off reproach.