"Then I can only say God speed you, for my thanks would be inadequate," Helen's voice trembled as she spoke. "But I must also ask your forgiveness for my presumption in judging you that day. I now know how far I was mistaken."
Geoffrey knew to what she referred. The day had been a memorable one for him, and, with pulses throbbing, he moved forward a pace, his eyes fixed upon the speaker's face. For a moment, forgetting everything, his resolutions were flung to the winds, and he trembled with passion and hope. Then he remembered his promise to the sick man, and Helen's own warning, and recovered a partial mastery of himself. It was a mere sense of justice which prompted the girl's words, his reason warned him, but he felt, instinctively, that they implied more than this, though he did not know how much. He stood irresolute until Helen looked up, and, if it had ever existed, the time for speech was past.
"I fear I have kept you too long, but there is still a question I must ask. You have seen my father in many of his moods, and there is something in the state of limp apathy he occasionally falls into which puzzles me. I cannot help thinking there is another danger of which I do not know. Can you not enlighten me?"
Helen leaned forward, a strange fear stamped upon her face. Fresh from the previous struggle, Geoffrey, whose heart yearned to comfort her, felt his powers of resistance strained to the utmost. Still, it was a question that he could not answer. Remembering Savine's injunction—to hold her father's name clean—he said quickly: "There is nothing I can tell you. You must remember only that the physician admitted a cheering possibility."
"I will try to believe in it." The trouble deepened in Helen's face, while her voice expressed bitter disappointment. "You have been very kind and I must not tax you too heavily."
Geoffrey turned away, distressed, for her and inwardly anathematized his evil fortune in being asked that particular question. He had, he felt, faltered when almost within sight of victory, neglecting to press home an advantage which might have won success. "It is, perhaps, the first time I have willfully thrown away my chances—the man who wins is the one who sees nothing but the prize," he told himself. "But I could not have taken advantage of her anxiety for her father and gratitude to me, while, if I had, and won, there would be always between us the knowledge that I had not played the game fairly."
Thomas Savine came into the room. "I was looking for you, and want to know when you'll go down to Vancouver with me to puzzle through everything before finally deciding just what you're going to do," he said. They talked a few moments. After the older man left him, Geoffrey found himself confronted by Mrs. Savine.
"I have been worried about you," she asserted. "You're carrying too heavy a load, and it's wearing you thin. You look a very sick man to-day, and ought to remember that the main way to preserve one's health is to take life easily."
"I have no doubt of it, madam," Thurston fidgeted, fearing what might follow; "but, unfortunately, one cannot always do so."
Mrs. Savine held out a little phial as she explained: "A simple restorative is the next best thing, and you will find yourself braced in mind and body by a few doses of this. It is what I desired to fix up my poor brother-in-law with when you prevented me."