I turned from the window wearily. My sitting-room looked strange to me. There were my books, my reading-lamp, my untasted dinner still on the table, as I had left it when I rose to dissemble my surprise at Ida Helmont's visit--Ida Helmont, who now sat in my easy-chair looking at me quietly. "Well--do you give me no thanks?" "You put a knife in my heart, and then ask for thanks?" "Pardon me," she said, throwing up her chin. "I have done nothing but show you the truth. For that one should expect no gratitude--may I ask, out of mere curiosity, what you intend to do?" "Your brother will tell you----" She rose suddenly, pale to the lips. "You will not tell my brother?" she began. "That you have read his private letters? Certainly not!" She came towards me--her gold hair flaming in the sunset light. "Why are you so angry with me?" she said. "Be reasonable. What else could I do?" "I don't know." "Would it have been right not to tell you?" "I don't know. I only know that you've put the sun out, and I haven't got used to the dark yet." "Believe me," she said, coming still nearer to me, and laying her hands in the lightest light touch on my shoulders, "believe me, she never loved you." There was a softness in her tone that irritated and stimulated me. I moved gently back, and her hands fell by her sides. "I beg your pardon," I said. "I have behaved very badly. You were quite right to come, and I am not ungrateful. Will you post a letter for me?" I sat down and wrote-- "I give you back your freedom. The only gift of mine that can please you now. "ARTHUR." I held the sheet out to Miss Helmont, and, when she had glanced at it, I sealed, stamped, and addressed it. "Good-bye," I said then, and gave her the letter. As the door closed behind her I sank into my chair, and I am not ashamed to say that I cried like a child or a fool over my lost plaything--the little dark-haired woman who loved some one else with "body, soul, and spirit." I did not hear the door open or any foot on the floor, and therefore I started when a voice behind me said-- "Are you so very unhappy? Oh, Arthur, don't think I am not sorry for you!" "I don't want any one to be sorry for me, Miss Helmont," I said. She was silent a moment. Then, with a quick, sudden, gentle movement she leaned down and kissed my forehead--and I heard the door softly close. Then I knew that the beautiful Miss Helmont loved me. At first that thought only fleeted by--a light cloud against a grey sky--but the next day reason woke, and said-- "Was Miss Helmont speaking the truth? Was it possible that----?" I determined to see Elvire, to know from her own lips whether by happy fortune this blow came, not from her, but from a woman in whom love might have killed honesty.