Her courage was screwed to the sticking point until she reached the terrace and, on the spot where that afternoon she had drawn cartoons of jest and the true picture of him and Henriette, saw Phil standing, his figure outlined in the rays of the moon which had at last freed itself of obscuring clouds. She stopped, numb, cold. Then she drew a deep breath, drove her fingers into her palms, and Phil turned at the sound of a merry "Hello!" to see Helen before him, laughing softly as she had over her work in the afternoon. She hurried her speech, with interludes of laughter which asked for forgiveness. "You know how mischievous I am--and--well--mind, I'll keep the secret, and my voice is like Henriette's and my figure, too, they say--and when you began to--well, to be eloquent to me on the bench, taking me for Henriette, I couldn't resist. I--I'm ashamed, but it was such a joke--I couldn't help it!" she finished with a peal of laughter. He had guessed the truth before she came to the climax and he rose to his part in answering laughter; lame, but still it was laughter, for which she thanked him from her heart and brain, now giddy with relief. "The joke is on me!" he agreed. "It was wicked--there isn't the slightest excuse!" she proceeded. "Personally, I don't see how you could have resisted it," he said. "Honestly not." "It's--it's awfully good of you!" she replied. "I don't feel quite so shameful now that you take it that way. You're a brick!" She was pleased with the way that she was carrying it out, thanks to having crossed the Rubicon and put all illusions behind her. "Acting for Henriette, I believe that you said yes," he resumed quizzically. Laughter was the cue here, too. She was prompt with it. "Did I? You were so eloquent I thought that I ought, instead of spoiling the play. It was the quickest way. I was getting embarrassed with my own joke." "You are a brick, too, my seventeenth cousin!" he said. "No harm done, as you have told nobody else." "Oh, but I have!" She could not help letting the truth go. "I told Henriette." "Oh!" Phil was thoughtful. "What did she say?" "To tell you--that is--I mean, the sense of it--that she was not acting by proxy in such matters." "Naturally not," he replied. "However, she knows," he concluded. "All's well that ends well," said Helen. "Yes." It was on her tongue's end to tell him of her resolution to go to America, but she changed her mind instantly and finally. She would not ask his help, not after this affair under the tree. And she would start to-morrow. She would not, could not, spend another day at Mervaux. The resolution had occupied her in a moment of silence. Awakening from it, she saw that he had turned as one drawn by something of intense interest and was gazing out across the fields. Far away on the horizon was a flash and another flash and then many flashes. It was like sheet lightning. "There must be a storm in the distance!" she exclaimed.