"Shall we go, Nelly?"
"If ye ain't reconciled to movin'—" Mr. Winship began.
But Helen answered neither of us. Her eyes were bent upon the floor, and a look, not now of resentment, but of—was it fear?—had slowly crept upon her face. Her hands were clenched.
Darmstetter! Instinct—or memory of my careless words spoken but a little earlier—told me the truth. The growing pallor of her cheek spoke her thought. How that tragedy haunts her! The face I looked upon was at the last almost ghastly.
"Nelly—" I said, very gently.
She looked around with the slow bewilderment that I once saw on the face of a sleep-walker. Her eyes saw through us, and past us, fixed upon some invisible horror. She was heedless of the familiar scene, the figures grouped about her. Then there came a sudden flush to her face, a quick recoil of terror; she shuddered as if waking from a nightmare.
"Why do we stay here?" she cried starting up with sudden, panic strength. "Let's get out of this horrible place! Let's go! Oh, let's go! Let's go!"
And so it was, in sorrow and with dark forebodings, that we left the gay rooms where Helen had so passionately enjoyed her little flight in the sunshine.
The drive through the streets was at first silent. Shutting her eyes, she leaned back in the carriage. Sometimes she shuddered convulsively.
"Where ye goin'?" Mr. Winship asked at last, peering out at the carriage window. Indeed the trip to Fourteenth Street seemed interminable to me, and I didn't wonder at his impatience.