Perhaps it was the girl's overwrought condition that made her more easily alarmed just then, for she was trembling all over as she heard those words. She had forgotten Arthur almost entirely during the past two days, and he came back to her at that moment as another thorn in her conscience. “Mr. Davis said he wrote you to go and see him,” went on the servant; “shall you, Miss Helen?” “I--I don't know,” said Helen faintly, “I'll see.” As a matter of fact, she knew that she almost certainly would _not_ go to see Arthur after what had just passed; even to have him find out about it was something of which she simply could not think. She felt dread enough at having to tell her father of what had occurred with Mr. Harrison, and to see Arthur, even though he did not know about it, she knew was not in her power. “Perhaps I ought not to have told you about it until after you had had your lunch; you are not eating anything, Miss Helen.” “I don't want anything,” said Helen, mournfully; “take it now, please, Elizabeth, and please do not trouble me any more. I have a great deal to worry me.” When the woman had left the room, Helen shut the door and then sat down on a chair, staring blankly before her; there was a mirror just across the room, and her own image caught her eye, startling her by its pale and haggard look. “Dear me, it's dreadful!” she cried aloud, springing up. “Why _did_ I let people trouble me in this way? I can't help Arthur, and I couldn't have helped him in the beginning. It's every bit of it his own fault, and I don't see why I should let it make me ill. And it's the same with the other thing; I could have been happy without all that wealth if I'd never seen it, and now I know I'll never be happy again,--oh, I know it!” And Helen began once more pacing up and down. “I never was this way before in my life,” she cried with increasing vexation, “and I won't have it!” She clenched her hands angrily, struggling within herself to shake off what was tormenting her. But she might as well have tried to shake off a mountain from her shoulders; hers had been none of the stern experience that gives power and command to the character, and of the kind of energy that she needed she had none, and not even a thought of it. She tried only to forget her troubles in some of her old pleasures, and when she found that she could not read, and that the music she tried to play sounded hollow and meaningless, she could only fling herself down upon the sofa with a moan. There, realizing her own impotence, she sank into dull despair, unable any longer to realize the difficulties which troubled her, and with only one certainty in her mind--that she was more lost and helpless than she had ever thought it possible for her to be.