“Mr. Bayard, I cannot keep it to myself! I must tell you how what you said this evening on the beach--how that service made me feel.” “Don’t!” said Bayard quickly. Helen shrank back into the stern of the dory; she felt, for the moment, terribly wounded. “Forgive me!” he pleaded. “I didn’t feel as if I could bear it--that’s all.” “I am not in the habit of making a fool of myself over ministers,” replied Helen hotly. “I never told one I liked his sermon, yet, in all my life. I was going to say--I meant to say--I _will_ say!” she cried, sitting up very straight, “Mr. Bayard, you are better than I am; truly, infinitely, solemnly better. I’ve never even _tried_ to be what you _are_. You’ve done me good, as well as Job, and Lena, and the rest. I _won’t_ go away without saying it,--and I’m going away this week.... There!” She drew a long breath and leaned back. Bayard rowed on for some moments in inscrutable silence. It was too dark to see the expression of his face. When he spoke, it was in a half-articulate, tired way. “I did not know. Are you coming back?” “I am going to Campo Bello with the Rollinses,” replied Helen briefly. “I don’t expect to come back again this year.” “I wonder I had not thought of it,” said Bayard slowly. “I did not,” he added. “The people will miss you,” he suggested, after a miserable pause. “Oh, they will get used to that,” said Helen. “And _I_?” he asked, in a tone whose anguish smote suddenly upon her ears, like a mortal cry. “What is to become of _me_?” “You’ll get used to it, too,” she said, thrusting out her hands in that way she had. His oars dropped across his knees. Before either of them could speak or think or reason, he had caught one of her outstretched hands. It lay, warm, soft, quivering,--a terrible temptation in the grasp of the devotee. He could have devoured it--her--soul and body; he could have killed her with kisses; he could have murdered her with love. Instead, he laid Helen’s hand down gently. He did not so much as lift it to his starving lips. He laid it down upon her own lap quite solemnly, as if he relinquished something unspeakably precious. He took up his oars, and rowed her home. Neither had spoken again. Helen’s heart beat wildly. She dared not look at him. Under the solitary lantern of the deserted float she felt his strong gaze upon her, and it looked, not with the eyes of angels, but with the eyes of a man. “Oh, my dear, I love you!” he breathed in a broken voice. Saying this, and only this, he led her to her father’s door, and left her. XIX. The mosquito-net portière swayed softly in the night wind. Emanuel Bayard sat in his study and looked about the poor place, gasping, like a man who has received or given a mortal hurt. The marred face of the great Christ looked through the coarse, white gauze; it seemed to scrutinize him sternly; he bowed his head before the gaze of the picture.