"Besides," she went on, "it was open to Archie to propose to me. He did not. We were several weeks together at Silorno. And then I came to London and met Bertie. Was it my fault that I fell in love with him? I think you are horribly unkind to me." Jessie came a step nearer. "Are you in love with him?" she asked. "If you tell me you are in love with him..." "Do you think I should marry him if I was not?" asked Helena, looking the picture of limpid, childlike innocence. Jessie made no reply. She could not say that she believed Helena was in love with him, though she was assuredly going to marry him. She could not tell a lie of that essential kind; merely the words would not come. "If I have wronged you in any way, Helena," she said at length, "I am most sincerely sorry for it. I ask your forgiveness unconditionally." Helena rose, wreathed in tender smiles and liquid eyes. "Darling, you have my forgiveness with all my heart," she said. "And may I ask you one thing? Will you try to feel a little more kindly towards me? If you only knew how your unkindness hurts me." * * * * * But Jessie, lying awake that night, striving, with all the sincerity that permeated her from skin to marrow, to make the effort that Helena had asked of her, made no headway at all. She utterly distrusted and disbelieved her. And somewhere, lying beneath the darkness of the windless night, was Archie, for whose happiness she would have given her heart's last blood. But all of it would not help him one atom while he, in the perverse dispensations of destiny, wanted only what he could not get, Helena's love. He could not get it because it did not exist. She did not love; the faculty had been denied her. * * * * * Suddenly she felt frightened about Archie. He had sunk somewhere out of reach this evening; a lid had shut down on him. Once or twice it had seemed to lift for a moment, and she remembered what made it lift. _BOOK III_ CHAPTER IX Late one afternoon about a week after, Archie was sitting with his old nurse, Blessington, in the room that had once been his day-nursery. He had left London the day after Helena had so honourably paid him the five half-crowns he had won from her, and since then he had been living here alone with his father. This evening, his mother and Jessie were coming down from town, his mother to remain here till she went up to London again for Helena's wedding which had been fixed for the end of the first week in August, while Jessie was but coming for a long week-end. Helena remained in town, where she was very busy shopping, and unpacking the lovely presents which Lord Harlow sent or brought to her, morning, noon, and night. They were really delightful presents, and the material of them was large precious stones, exquisitely set.