"It--it is true," she faltered. "It has come to you too--this change, this new life that has come to me. It is true--I can see it in your face." "Yes; it is true," he answered, in a low voice. "Thank God!" she whispered--and hid her face in her hands--and presently he heard her sob again. A tiny cloud edged the moon, and the light faded, and it grew dark, and the darkness hid her; then softly, timidly almost it seemed, the radiance came creeping through the branches overhead again--and then he spoke. "Helena," he said, steadying his voice with an effort, "you spoke of atonement a little while ago; but there is no atonement that I can make to you--nothing that I can do to change what I would give my soul to change. I know what it meant to you to send Thornton away to-night, for I love you now as you love him--I know why you did it, and--" She was staring at him a little wildly--her hands pressed against her cheeks. "Love--Thornton," she repeated in a sort of wondering way, a long pause between the words. "Yes," he said gently; "I know. Have you forgotten what you told me this afternoon?--that you had learned--last night--what love was." She shook her head. "I do not love Thornton," she said in a monotone. "And yet it is true that through him I learned what love was, what it _could_ be--don't you understand?" Understand! No; it seemed that he could never understand! She did not love Thornton! And then, as some fiery cordial, the words seemed to whip through his veins, quickening the beat of his heart into wild, tumultuous throbbing. Yes, yes, he could understand--it was true--true--she did not love Thornton. "Helena!" he cried--and stretched out his arms to her. "I thought, oh, God, I thought that I had lost you--Helena!" But she did not move. "What does it matter to you whether I love Thornton or not?" she said dully. "Does it change anything where you and I are concerned--does it change what I told you this afternoon--that I would not go back to _that_." "To that! Ah, no!"--his voice rang dominant, vibrant, triumphant now. "Helena, don't you understand? We are to begin life again--in a new way, the true way, the only way. Don't you see--I love you!" Still she did not move--but there was a great whiteness in her face, and in the whiteness a great light. "You mean?"--her lips scarcely seemed to form the words.