"Of course, _you_ would feel that," the doctor protested; "and it is, of course it is! Only, I can understand how a boy might feel. Down at the Wrights' there was just nothing but plain goodness, oh, very plain, Mrs. Richie. It was all bread-and-butter. Necessary; I'm the last person to say that bread-and-butter isn't necessary. But you do want cake, once in a while; I mean when you are young. Sam couldn't help liking cake," he ended smiling. "Cakes and ale," Helena said. But the connection was not clear to William. "At home, there was just plain, ugly goodness; then he met you. And he saw goodness, and other things!" Helena's fingers opened and closed nervously. "I wish you wouldn't call me good," she said; "I'm not. Truly I'm not." William laughed, looking at her with delighted eyes. "Oh, no; you are a terrible sinner!" At which she said with sudden, half-sobbing violence, "Oh, _don't;_ I can't bear it. I am not good." The doctor sobered. This really was too near the abnormal to be safe; he must bring her out of it. He must make her realize, not only that she was not to blame about Sam Wright, but that the only shadow on her goodness was this same morbid feeling that she was not good. He got up again and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at her with good-natured determination. "Now look here!" he said, "conscience is a good thing; but conscience, unrestrained by common sense, does a fine work for the devil. That isn't original, Dr. Lavendar said it; but it's true. I wish Dr. Lavendar knew of this morbid idea of yours about responsibility--he'd shake it out of you! Won't you let me tell him?" "Oh, no! no! Please don't!" "Well, I won't; but he would tell you that it was wrong not to see straight in this matter; it's unfair to your--to Providence," William said. He did not use religious phrases easily, and he stumbled over "unfair to your Heavenly Father," which was what Dr. Lavendar had said in some such connection as this: "Recognize your privileges and be grateful for the help they have been in making you as good as you are. To deny what goodness you have is not humility, it's only being unfair to your Heavenly Father." But William could not say a thing like that; so he blundered on about Providence, while Helena sat, trembling, her cheek on David's hair. "You are as good as any mortal of us can be," William declared, "and better than ninety-nine mortals in a hundred. So there! Why Mrs. Richie"--he hesitated, and the color mounted slowly to his face; "your loveliness of character is an inspiration to a plain man like me." It was intolerable. With a breathless word, she rose, swaying a little under the burden of the sleeping child; then, moving swiftly across the room, she laid him on a sofa. David murmured something as she put him down, but she did not stop to hear it. She came back and stood in front of William King, gripping her hands together in a passion of denial.