The nurse now entered the room with a cup of nourishment in her hand.
Helen arose to make room for her, saying inquiringly:
"I think perhaps I ought to go now?"
"No! Oh, please do not!" weakly pleaded Marie.
"If you can stay, it will be a comfort to her, and"—with a significant look which her patient could not see—"it will do her no harm."
"Very well, then, I will remain for a while longer," Helen returned, as she moved to a window and stood looking out upon the grounds below while the nurse fed her patient.
What a strange experience! she said to herself. What mysterious influence could have guided her steps thither that morning, in direct answer, as it seemed, to Marie's desire to see her? She could understand how Marie, awed and softened by the knowledge that she was soon to go out into the great beyond, might wish to make some restitution for the wrong in which she had been a partner, by trying to protect her own and Dorothy's future from the old scandal; but she could not account for the revulsion of feeling that had obliterated all ill will and resentment from her own consciousness, making her oblivious to everything but the fact that her rival was a suffering, dying woman, alone in a great extremity, and in sore need of being comforted and sustained as the shadows closed around her.
A great peace fell upon her, and she was glad that she had come. Perhaps, she thought, she was beginning to learn something of the love of which Mrs. Everleigh had told her the previous Sunday—the desire to do good for the sake of doing good.
When she looked around she found the nurse had gone, and Marie was in a light sleep.
She went noiselessly back to her chair by the bed, to wait for her to waken, and as she studied the colorless face upon the pillow she was impressed more than ever by the remarkable beauty with which she had been endowed. The features were very symmetrical, and just now seemed more refined than she had ever seen them.