"You must stay and help bear it," he said.
She looked steadfastly into his eyes. "You're mighty good to me," she breathed in a dry whisper. And then a sob broke from her, and turning abruptly she went into the office.
In the afternoon David walked over to St. Christopher's to meet Helen Chambers. Besides his bitterness, and his suspense over seeing her, David felt as he entered the door of the Mission (what he had felt on his three or four previous visits) a fear of meeting some wrathful, upbraiding body who would recognise him. But he met no one except a group of children coming with books from the library, and unescorted he followed the familiar way to the reception room, where Helen had written she would meet him. This, like the rest of the Mission's interior he had seen, was practically unchanged; and in this maintenance of old arrangements he read reverence for Morton. He wandered about the room, looking at the friendly, brown-framed prints that summoned back the far, ante-prison days. The past, flooding into him, and his sense of the nearness of Helen, crowded out for the time all his bitterness over Rogers's destruction.
When Helen appeared at the door, he was for an instant powerless to move, so thrilled was he with his love for her. She came across the room with a happy smile, her hand held out. He strode toward her, and as he caught her hand his blood swept through him in a warm wave.
"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried, and a little laugh told him how sincere her joy was.
A sudden desire struggled to tell her, truly, how great was his gladness, and its kind, at seeing her again; and fighting the desire back made him dizzy. "And I to see you!" he said.
"It's been—let's see—five months since I've seen you, and—"
"Five months and four days," the desire within David corrected.
"And four days," she accepted, with a laugh. "And there've been so many things during that time I've wanted to talk with you about. But how are you?"