And Helen answered:-- MY DEAR FRIEND:--Mother wrote me yesterday that she needed my help in packing. We go back to Cesarea on the 9th, and I shall therefore be in Windover for the twenty-four hours preceding our start.... Do not suffer so! I told you that I trusted you. And I always shall. Yours faithfully, H. C. It was a chilly September evening. The early dark of the coming autumn leaned from a clouded sky. The goldenrod and asters on the side of the avenue looked dim under the glimmer of the hotel lights; and the scarlet petals of the geraniums in the flower-beds were falling. In the harbor the anchored fleets flung out their headlights above a tossing sea. There was no rowing. The floats were deserted. The guests, few now, and elect, of the sort that know and love the September Windover, clustered around the fireplace in the big parlor of the Mainsail. On the piazza of the Flying Jib the trunks stood strapped for the late evening porter and the early morning train. Bayard heard Helen’s voice in the rooms overhead, while he sat, with whirling brain, making such adieus as he could master to Professor and Mrs. Carruth. He thought that the Professor looked at him with unwonted keenness; he might have called it sternness, if he had given himself time to reflect upon it. Reflect he did not, would not. He asked distinctly for Miss Helen. Her mother went to call her, and did not return. Professor Carruth lingered a few moments, and excused himself. The proofs of the article on the Unforgiven had come by the evening mail; he had six galleys to correct that night. He shook hands with Bayard somewhat abstractedly, and went over to the clam study, swinging a lantern on his thin arm to light the meadow path. “It is too cold for Father over there, to-night,” said Helen immediately, when she and Bayard were left alone. “I don’t think he ought to go. The Unforgiven are always up to some mischief. I would accept the doctrine of eternal punishment to get rid of them. I’m glad they’ve got as far along towards it as proof-sheets.” “Am I keeping your father out of this warm room?” asked Bayard with his quick perception. He glanced at the open fire on the hearth. “That won’t do!” he said decidedly, rising. “Oh, I didn’t mean _that_!” cried Helen, flushing. “It is true, all the same, whether you meant it or not,” returned Bayard. “I shall stay but a few moments. Would you mind putting on something warm, and walking with me--for a little? We can go over to the clam study and get him.” “Very well,” said Helen somewhat distantly. She wore a summer traveling-dress of purple serge, fastened at the throat with a gold pansy. A long, thick cape with a hood lay upon the sofa.