“You have been doing something kind,” said young Ashton, looking at her, his face full of tender admiration and sympathy.
“Not I, not I!” Helen cried. The tears came down her cheeks in a torrent. “It is papa, poor papa, that has been kind. You don’t know how good he is. He has made some of the poor people very happy; and his reward,” she cried, “will be to be driven away. Oh, why should that be? Papa, who used to be so rich, who had everything; and now that he is quiet here, in a little wretched village, you come and drive him away!”
Young Ashton’s countenance changed. It grew grave, almost severe. “I do not drive him away,” he said. “If there was anything I could do to make him safe, I would do it; but he will know better than you do that I cannot. Tell him that Sir John Harvey is here. He will understand that better than anything. Not in search of him—not knowingly, but still he is here. Do they know at the château? Can they give any information? Will they put John on the scent? Pardon me for using such words—he is my cousin, but he is a hard man. Do they know who you are?”
Helen drooped her head with a bitter sense of shame. Even now she did not know what the real stigma was; but the shame of a false name bowed her to the ground. “They do not know us,” she said almost inaudibly, “by our true name.”
And as she stood before him with her head bent down and that flush of humiliation on her face, Ashton’s heart was too full to keep silence. A cry of painful sympathy came from his lips. He took her hand and kissed it with passionate sympathy and anguish. “My poor child, my poor child!” he cried. “You, you! to have this burden to bear. Leave him, for God’s sake, and let me take you home.”
“Leave him! now, when he is badly off and in trouble?” This idea brought a kind of smile to Helen’s lips. “But, Mr Ashton, I think you mean very kindly. I will tell him, and you can say to them at the château that he was not very well, that the excitement had told upon him, and that I could not leave him to-night. They will understand that. And don’t make them think any harm of us, not more harm than you can help. They have been very sweet to me,” Helen said after a pause, her tears dropping again; “such friends! and Thérèse, Mr Ashton, Thérèse, remember! She is not Cécile, but she is nearly as good as Cécile.”
“I know nothing about Thérèse or Cécile!” he cried. “Helen, oh, forgive me, I am almost mad! Are you to be swept away from me once more? Am I to lose you again?”
She shook her head sadly. “What does it matter? We never did know each much,” she said.
“I will come to the village after it is dark. I will wait about on the chance of seeing you; perhaps even I might be of use. Don’t refuse me this,” he cried; “don’t refuse me so much as this! If it is I that must drive my own happiness away, at least let me see you once again.”
“Yes; it is true, if you are a friend, you might be of use. You might help me, perhaps,” Helen said simply, “if you will be so kind. That is the house, that tall one with the green shutters. It will be very kind if you will come.”