Helen's first conscious sensation next morning was a feeling of loss, which resolved itself into a deep sadness when she was fairly awake and realized that Arthur had gone. She had not Considered how much his companionship and friendliness had been to her until now, when she felt them lost. A woman so lonely yet so affectionate as Helen could not spare from her life a friend so dear as Fenton had been without being much moved. So strong had been her attachment, and so intimate had been the acquaintance between herself and Arthur, that Dr. Ashton had believed his wife to love the artist; but Helen, closely questioning her heart, was able to assure herself that warm as had been her regard for Fenton, he had never awakened in her bosom a single thrill of love. She was sad this morning with the sorrow of a broken friendship, not of a blighted passion. She sighed deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze her energies and enervate her whole being. The gown which she had worn upon the previous evening lay over a chair, giving out, as she lifted it, an odor of tobacco smoke. Some remark made by Grant Herman about the fumes which had filled the little parlor came into her mind, giving a new current to her thoughts. She unconsciously fell to thinking of the sculptor, and, by a natural connection of ideas, of Ninitta, who was still nominally posing for her. Partly from interest in the girl herself and partly from the perception that it pleased her master to have the Italian remain with her, she had retained Ninitta, although the bas-relief was so far advanced that the model was hardly needed. She had even set herself, by those unobtrusive ways at the command of gracious women, to win the girl's confidence, not so much for the sake of hearing her story as to give the waif so strangely cast in her path the feeling that the friendship she so sorely needed was within her reach. It had resulted, however, in her hearing Ninitta's history. Many women have no idea of returning kindness save by unreserved confidence, and although Ninitta was perhaps scarcely to be reckoned among these extremists, she yet found so much comfort in pouring out her sorrows to one who could both sympathize and appreciate, that little by little the whole pathetic tale was told. "I did not understand," Ninitta said once in her broken English, "when he left Rome. It was as if somebody had taken my life away somehow. I couldn't make it seem that I was really alive all the same, though I knew it could not be his fault. He would not have done it if he had known. You do not believe he would have left me if he had known the truth?" "No," Helen answered. "He could not have left you if he had known. It was because he was hurt so much, and that could only be because he loved you so much."