Helen looked at Uncle Peabody reproachfully. “Don’t make me think that men are wilfully obtuse,” she said. “When I talked it over with Jack he called it jealousy; now you think I lack an appreciation of the seriousness of it all!” Helen paused for a moment and closed her eyes. When she spoke again all the intensity of her nature burst forth. “Can you not see beneath this calmness the effort I am making to do my duty?” she asked, in a low, tense voice. “Can you not see my heart burned to ashes by the fire it has passed through? Look at me, uncle. Jack says I seem ten years older—twenty would be nearer the truth. Do these changes come to those who fail to appreciate what they are doing? It is not that I don’t realize; it is because I can’t forget.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, child,” Uncle Peabody hastened to say, appalled by the effect of his words. “My own heart has bled for you all these weeks, and I would be the last to add another burden to the load you bear. It is hard to suffer, but sometimes I think it is almost as hard to see those one loves passing through an ordeal which he is powerless to lighten. I don’t want you to take a step which will plunge you into deeper sorrow, that is all. You may be right, but I pray God that you are wrong. Now let me help you, if I can.”
Helen smiled through the mist before her eyes. “You can help me,” she said, “just by being your own dear self during these hard weeks to come. Stay here until it is over, and then take me home, where you can show me how to use the years I see before me.” Helen buried her face in her hands. “Oh, those years!” she cried; “how can I endure them?”
“Come, come, Helen,” urged Uncle Peabody, kindly, “I can’t believe that the world has all gone wrong, as you think it has. Let us take one step at a time, and see if together we can’t find the sun shining through the cypress-trees. Tell me just what you propose to do.”
“The programme is a simple one,” Helen answered. “Outwardly there will be no change. I shall make Jack’s home as attractive as possible to him while we share it together. Inez is my guest, and will be welcome as long as I am here. Other than this it will be as if we all were visitors. Jack will notice no difference while his work lasts. Then when it is completed you and I will go back home. Jack may stay here or return, as he chooses. Inez will decide her own course. Then Jack will at last understand that I meant what I said—that I saw that I stood in the way of his future and stepped aside.”
“Do you imagine that he will permit this when once he understands?” asked Uncle Peabody.
“He will try to prevent it,” assented Helen. “He will realize that he has neglected me and he will want to atone, but this will be from a sense of duty, even though he does not know it. The actual break will be a blow to him, but then he will turn to Inez and will find that I understood him better than he did himself.”
“But he is counting on continuing this work in Boston next winter. He spoke of it again yesterday, and said how splendid it was of you to make it possible for Miss Thayer to work there with him.”
Helen rose and stepped out into the garden, looking far away into the distance. Then she turned toward him.
“I am making it possible, am I not?” she said, simply.