The two did not see Helen as they passed her; the reason was that Helen was stretched out upon the ground by the side of the hedge. It was not that she was hiding,--she had no thought of that; it was because she had been struck there by the scathing words that she had heard. Some of them were so bitter that they could only have filled her with rage had she not known that they were true, and had she not been awed by what she had learned of this man's heart. She could feel only terror and fiery shame, and the cruel words had beaten her down, first upon her knees, and then upon her face, and they lashed her like whips of flame and tore into her flesh and made her writhe. She dared not cry out, or even sob; she could only dig into the ground with her quivering fingers, and lie there, shuddering in a fearful way. Long after the two men were gone her cruel punishment still continued, for she still seemed to hear his words, seared into her memory with fire as they had been. What Mr. Howard had said had come like a flash of lightning in the darkness to show her actions as they really were; the last fearful sentences which she had heard had set all her being aflame, and the thought of Mr. Harrison's embraces filled her now with a perfect spasm of shame and loathing. “I sold myself to him for money!” she panted. “Oh, God, for money!” But then suddenly she raised herself up and stared about her, crying out, half-hysterically, “No, no, it is not true! It is not true! I could never have done it--I should have gone mad!” And a moment later Helen had staggered to her feet. “I must tell him,” she gasped. “He must not think so of me!” Mr. Howard had come to her as a vision from a higher world, making all that she had known and admired seem hideous and base; and her one thought just then was of him. “He will still scorn me,” she thought, “but I must tell him I really did suffer.” And heedless of the fact that her hair was loose about her shoulders and her dress wet with the dew of the grass, the girl ran swiftly up the lawn towards the house, whispering again and again, “I must tell him!” It was only a minute more before she was near the piazza, and could see the people upon it as they stood in the lighted doorway. Mr. Howard was one of them, and Helen would have rushed blindly up to speak to him, had it not been that another thought came to her to stop her.