"Oh, nothing. You know--she's been worrying." Then loyal Kitty spoke purposely of commonplaces. "General must have danced her off her feet. Darmstetter's death upset her terribly, too. She never will speak of it. But she'll be as right as right with me. Bring her 'round as soon as the man comes for the trunks. You've only to head up a barrel of dishes, quick, 'fore Clesta gets in any fine work smashing 'em." As I passed through the hall, littered with trunks and packing cases, to the dismantled parlour, Helen looked up from a mass of old letters and dance cards. "I'm sorting my--souvenirs," she said. The face she lifted was white, only the lips richly red, with a shade of fatigue under the haunting eyes. The graceful figure in its close-fitting dress looked a trifle less round than it had done earlier in the winter, and one fair arm, as it escaped from its flowing sleeve, was almost thin. "Dear," I said wistfully, for something in her drooping attitude smote me to remorse and inspired me with tenderness; "will you really trust your life to me?" She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then--I saw among the rubbish on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have spoken. "What's that?" I asked. "Not--pawn tickets?" "For a necklace," she said; "and this--this must be my diamond--" "Pawned and not paid for!" She offered me the tickets, only half understanding, her great eyes as innocent as they were lovely. "I had forgotten," she said. "I only found them when I came to--" She brushed the rubbish of her winter's triumphs and disappointments to the floor, and turned from it with a little, disdainful movement. "I had to pay the maids," she said simply. "Nelly, why--why didn't you come to me sooner?" With a bump against the door, Clesta sidled into the room awestruck and smutched, bearing a tray. "Miss Kitty said," she stammered, "as how I should make tea." And as soon as she had found a resting place for her burden, the frightened girl made a dash for the door. Before Helen had finished drinking, there was a stir in the hall, and then the sound of a familiar voice startled us. "Wa-al, Helen 'Lizy," it said. "How ye do, John? Don't git up; I can set till ye're through." And Mr. Winship himself stood before us, stoop-shouldered, roughly dressed from the cattle cars, his kindly old eyes twinkling, his good face all glorified by the honest love and pride shining through its plainness. "Why, Father!" cried Helen with a start. She looked at him with a nervous repugnance to his appearance, which she tried to subdue. He did not seem to notice it. "Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?" he asked. "Kind o' thought I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'."