She pressed his hand sympathetically. The mouth said nothing, but the hand said plainly: “Do not despair—I am working for a home at The Gaffs.”
He pitied her, for there was misery in her eyes and in her laugh and in the very touch of her hand. Misery and insincerity, and that terrible mental state when weakness is roped up between the two and knows, for once in its life, that it has no strength at all.
And she pitied him, for never before on any human face had she seen the terrible irony of agony. Agony she had often seen—but not this irony of it—this agony that saw all its life's happiness blasted and knew it deserved it.
Richard Travis, when he left Westmoreland, knew that he left it forever.
“The Queen is dead—long live the Queen,” he said bitterly.
And then there happened what always happens to the thing in the mud—he sank deeper—desperately deeper.
Now—now he would have Helen Conway. He would have her and own her, body and soul. He would take her away—as he had planned, and keep her away. That was easy, too—too far away for the whisper of it ever to come back. If he failed in that he would marry her. She was beautiful—and with a little more age and education she would grace The Gaffs. So he might marry her and set her up, a queen over their heads.
This was his determination when he went to the mill the first of the week. All the week he watched her, talked with her, was pleasant, gallant and agreeable. But he soon saw that Helen was not the same. There was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand. There was a brightness in her eyes which made her more beautiful.
The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it all had over him was evidenced in what he did. He confided his plans to Jud Carpenter, and set him to work to discover the cause.
“See what's wrong,” he said significantly. “I am going to take that girl North with me, and away from here. After that it is no affair of yours.”