He stopped her with a swift, savage gesture. “Helga, I can’t stand it any longer! I would give you the last drop of my blood, gladly, willingly, if it would help you. But to be here as I am, to see you every day, is more than I can endure. I must get away. There is one other thing; I know something of what Harris Haynes did for you.” He spoke more gently, looking with a wistful respect at the grave. “Now that he has gone, you must not let that make any difference in your opportunities. You must go on as you were; your music, your studies.”
The girl made a little gesture of refusal. They walked toward the house in silence, for a time. Then Everard spoke again.
“Yet that is what he would have wished. I know that you haven’t the money to do this.” Dick, having a gift of silence, had said nothing of Haynes’ bequest. “I have more than I can use. I know I can’t give it to you outright. But I can give it to Mr. Johnston. Or, if you can’t take it from me, you could from my family. It wouldn’t mean anything; it wouldn’t bind you to the slightest thing. Oh, Helga, dear, let me do that much for you!”
“Only one man can have the right to do that,” she said, hardly above a whisper.
“He is gone,” said Everard, not comprehending. “I cannot fill his place, except this one, poor way.”
“No,” she said. From her bosom she drew out a note and handed it to him.
“From mother!” he cried. “To you!”
It was the letter of a worldly but kind-natured and essentially sound-hearted woman, an appeal for a deeply-loved son. “That’s Dick’s work,” said the young man fondly, after running through it. “And it comes too late! Does it come too late, Helga?”
“If I only knew what was right,” said the girl. “If only Petit Père was here to tell me!”
“Do you mean that you didn’t care for him that way?” cried Everard. “Helga, do you mean that I had my chance? Is there still——”