Helen had that vague confidence that what is desired must happen, which is common to the very young, when their own feelings are not so deeply concerned as to make them despondent; and though she could not possibly know anything about it, and her assurances that all would be well were absolutely worthless, still they consoled Blanchette, who was very grateful for the interest shown in her, and cried, and smiled, and declared mademoiselle to be an angel. This was not unpleasant, on the other hand, to the lonely little Englishwoman. To be sure Blanchette was not a lady, but she was a girl, and the freemasonry of youth is warm. Helen got quite excited as she speculated upon the chances which involved the happiness of this young pair. She herself knew nothing of such agitations. She felt to herself like a very pale little shadow standing by looking on, while the others were involved in all those hopes and fears. She, too, had been plunged into a stormy sea, but it was very different from this one; Helen did not understand the change in her own life, and notwithstanding all that her father had said, could not feel at all sure that this mysterious chapter might not end as it began, and Fareham and its splendours reappear again in her existence. But as she sat down in the semi-darkness after Blanchette had left her, her mind followed an altogether different line of thinking. Blanchette was the perennial heroine of human story. All the romances, all the poetry were occupied with troubles like hers. None of them took any interest in the fate of a girl whose father was the cause of her misfortunes, and with whose griefs no warmer thought of possible happiness was twisted. She was altogether in the shadow, and sympathy was not for her. She had not even a chance of sympathy without a complaint, without, perhaps, betraying her father, which was impossible. But with Blanchette everybody sympathised, even the ladies of the Sacré Cœur, who might be expected to be not too favourable to marriage. Helen knew nothing of this phase of life. She wondered, with a shy alarm at her own thoughts, if, as the novels said, something of the kind happened in everybody’s experience? The thought made her laugh faintly by herself, and made her blush, though without the slightest reason; and then suddenly there came before her, like a scene in a theatre, the _table d’hôte_ at Sainte-Barbe, and the young stranger who had startled her by his recognition, and who had been so glad to see her. Why had he been so glad to see her? A little tremble ran over Helen, a flush to her face, and she laughed again, this time more faintly than ever, then sprang up and took down the candle from the oldfashioned marble-topped sideboard in the corner, and put it on the table, and got her book. She had been reading a pious French book which she had found in her room, because it was Sunday; it was not very engrossing. Her thoughts strayed away from it in spite of herself.