“Don’t you see it is the same thing?” he cried. “It is because we are two of us--not one poor individual standing alone, but two to do everything together: that makes all the difference in the world.” Helen did not speak, but she felt it, she could not tell why. Yes, there was a difference. The burden was lighter; there was a change in the air; the road did not seem to lead away entirely into the darkness as it had done an hour before. Two of them!--was that the reason of the change? “Helen! that would be all, almost all, I wanted--if you feel so too.” She did not make any direct reply; but she said, “I could not go to India, and leave him. It would not be possible to leave him. If he were well, if he were safe--but how could I leave him now?” “He would wish it,” said young Ashton very decidedly, “if he knew. He is not a bad man, Helen.” (He paused here, and made a little mental reservation with natural severity.) “He does not want to make you wretched, dragging you after him. He would wish it if he knew.” There was another pause, and then Helen abandoned this subject altogether, and said, with a little quiver in her voice which--was it possible?--sounded half like laughter, “You were--perhaps: they thought it possible--to have been the _futur_ of Thérèse?” “Folly!” he cried. “John thought it would answer; as if any Englishman would make such a bargain: the woods to look after, and a very pretty young lady! What would he have said, I wonder, if he had been brought in cold blood to Cécile? But he did not know my heart was full of some one else; that is his only excuse.” At this moment a bell tinkled inside, and Helen started; he was standing very near to her now, close up in the shadow of the doorway, two that looked like one. And she did not make any objection. But now she disengaged herself softly. “It is papa who wants me,” she said. “Then it is a bargain, dear. I will be on the watch; I will keep off John. I will come and see what you think to-morrow night.” “Good night,” she whispered. It sounded like an echo of the last word he had said. Mr Goulburn had raised himself half out of his bed, his eyes were feverish and shining. “Who was that?” he said. “You were talking to some one at the door.” Helen stood with a candle in her hand, which threw a vivid light upon her face, bringing out its soft brilliancy of tint, the blush that hung over it like a faint rose-shadow, the dewy dazzlement of agitation in the eyes amid the surrounding darkness. She said very softly, with a little catch of her breath, “It was Mr Ashton, papa.” Mr Goulburn lay back upon his pillows with a relieved face; he laughed. “That is all right,” he said--“now I shall sleep in peace. I have two guardians instead of one.”