'You may rely upon my discretion,' said Thornton Carey. 'I only want to come at the truth, and I will evolve that in the gentlest manner possible.' 'Mrs. Jenkins is better,' said Annette, crossing the room from the side of the couch where she had been standing, 'and would wish to speak to madame.' 'Now is your opportunity, Thornton,' whispered Helen to him. 'Come with me.' Mrs. Jenkins, who had raised herself to a sitting posture on the couch, was perfectly pale; there was a tremulous motion in her lips and a nervous wandering of her hands, which showed that she had not yet got over the recent shock; but she did her utmost to nerve herself as Mrs. Griswold approached her, and her eyes, as they rested on her benefactress, had a soft and imploring expression. 'Annette tells me you are better, nurse, and that you want to speak to me,' said Helen, laying a kind light touch upon the patient's arm. 'You, however, scarcely yet seem to be yourself, and if there is anything in what you have to say calculated to excite you, perhaps it would be better to defer it until you are a little stronger.' 'What I have to say, dear madam,' said Mrs. Jenkins, in a low and feeble voice, 'ought, in the interests of truth and justice, to be told at once; the longer it is kept to myself the longer I shall feel myself guilty of gross deception to you, who have been so kind and good to me.' 'Deception, nurse?' 'Deception, I am afraid, it must be called, dear madam; not that I have myself actually deceived you, or that I would allow anybody connected with me to do so; but that certain things have been going on in which you were to some extent interested with which I was acquainted, and which I have kept from your knowledge.' 'I am perfectly certain,' said Helen, in her calm sweet voice, 'that you have knowingly done me no harm; I am perfectly certain, from the attention and devotion which you have shown to me since you have been in this house, that if you could have stood between me and harm's way, you would have done so. If; however, there is anything on your mind which it will render you easier to get rid of, if you think to clear your conscience by telling us--for this gentleman, Mr. Carey, is entirely in my confidence--anything which you think it behoves me to know, speak at once.' 'You are right in saying that there is nothing I would not do to shield you from harm, dear madam,' said Mrs. Jenkins, touching Helen's hand with her wan lips. 'The intrigue in which I was passively mixed up was arranged before I entered your house, and it is only within the last few minutes--when I fainted, in fact--it flashed upon me that the affair could possibly have any connection with your present dreadful sorrow.' At these words Thornton Carey started, and bent forward his head to listen more attentively.