Helen stood between the two excited men in the quiet of her innocence, not understanding for the first moment what their angry voices meant. Then her pale and almost passive face became transformed; slowly, gradually, the light rose in it, kindling her eyes, quickening the colour on her cheeks. She turned from one to the other, listening, entering into the meaning. At last she detached herself entirely from her lover, drawing her hand from his arm, and stood alone, with a kind of proud humility. She stopped till Sir John had made that last remark. His tone, the very sound of his voice filled her with wonder and dismay. She knew no reason for this hostility. “My father is dead,” she said with simple dignity; “if he has done wrong he is in God’s hands; and we are two girls, fatherless and motherless. Is it with us you are angry, Sir John? It must be with me, for Janey is a child. What is it that I have done? If it is anything that I can put right, and you will tell me, I will do it. Why is it you look and speak to me so?” Sir John was taken entirely aback. He looked at her and faltered. She put Charley away with her hand, with a smile and quivering lip. She would stand alone while he spoke to her. “No,” she said, “not you; do not come near me. Let him tell me what I have done wrong.” Sir John Harvey was a man of experience. He knew how to conduct himself in most emergencies. He was not apt to be put out. But when he found himself confronted by this young, solitary, friendless creature, who had but one person to stand by her in all the world, and he the one whom her powerful, prosperous enemy was endeavouring to detach from her, the courage and the strength were taken out of him. Sir John, so big and strong and well-to-do, faltered before the small, weak, desolate girl. He could not meet her eyes; his voice and countenance failed him. “I--I have nothing to say to you, Miss Goulburn,” he said. “I did not approve of your father; he has made a great deal of mischief, and ruined many people; but he is dead, as you say. I don’t pretend to judge him. The only thing is,” he added, getting courage as he went on, “the only thing is--what you must see yourself--that a connection with you cannot do any man any good; that it must, in short, more or less, do harm. Your giving up this,” he continued quickly, careless of Charley’s loud interruption, “is very creditable to you. It will make everybody think better of you. Still, notwithstanding----” “Helen, if you listen to that man, if you stand any longer and hear me insulted, I will think--I will believe you care for me no longer,” Charley Ashton cried.