With the yielding up of the secrets of the Meeting House had started a succession of shocks, each one harder than its predecessor to bear, until she was left almost paralyzed and quite powerless to resist them.
With Stanley Fyles heading the procession of death, with the man’s brief outline of the circumstances attending his raid, her heart seemed suddenly to have turned to stone. Her thought turned at once to her sister. That sister, even now away from home, waiting in dreading unconsciousness for the completion of the disaster she so terribly feared. To Helen’s sympathetic heart the horror of the position was magnified an hundredfold. Kate had been right. Kate had understood where they had all been blind, and Kate, loyal, strong, brave Kate, must learn that the very disaster she had prophesied had come, and, in coming, had overtaken the one man they had all so earnestly desired to shield—Charlie Bryant.
Without waiting another moment she left the scene. She had blindly rushed from the proximity of that gaping, awe-stricken, curious crowd. And her way had taken her straight home. She had no thought for any object. How could she? Her mind and heart were overflowing with fear and concern, and a world of sympathy for Kate—the absent Kate. Charlie was dead. Charlie had been caught red-handed. Charlie, that poor, helpless, besotted drunkard. He—he—after all their faith in his integrity, after all Kate’s lavish affection, he was the real criminal, and—Fyles had run him to his death. She had no thought now of Bill’s absence from her side. She had no thought of anything but this one overwhelming disaster.
So she ran on home. Nor did she pause till she flung herself upon the coverlet of her little white bed in a passionate storm of weeping.
How long she lay there she never knew. A merciful Providence finally sent sleep to her weary brain and heart. And when she ultimately awoke it was to start up dazedly, and find herself staring into the solemn, dreadful eyes of her sister, Kate, who was standing just beyond the open doorway of her bedroom, gazing in upon her.
Then followed a scene never likely to be wholly forgotten.
She sprang from her bed and ran toward that ominous figure. She was prepared to fling herself upon that strong support which had never yet failed her. But, for once, no such support was forthcoming. Long before she reached her side Kate had stepped into the room and seemed to collapse into the rocker beside the dressing bureau. The brave Kate was reduced to a pitiful outburst of tearless sobs.
For one brief instant Helen was again on the verge of tears, but she remembered. With a great effort she forced them back, and held herself in a strong grip. Then, slowly, a change began to creep over her. It was not she who must look for support from Kate. It was she who must yield support, and the memory of all those years when Kate, never by word or act had failed her, came to her aid.
But though she sought by every means in her power to comfort the heartbroken woman, her efforts were wholly unavailing. They were perhaps worse than unavailing. For Kate proved as unreasonable as any weak, hysterical girl, and, rebuffing her at every turn, finally broke into such a storm of bitter self-reviling as to leave her sister helpless.
“Leave me, Helen,” she cried, through her grievous sobs. “Don’t come near me. Go, go. Don’t look at me; don’t come near. I’m not fit to live. I’m a—murderess. It’s I—I who’ve killed him. Oh, God, was there ever such punishment. No—no. Go away—go away. I—I can’t bear it.”