"I cannot go," he broke out suddenly. "I love you! I must stay! I must at least have an answer. Do you think a man could kiss you once and then leave you like this?" She shivered as if she felt anew his passionate embrace and shrank from it. She threw her glance about as to discover some means of escape. The gesture, the look, overwhelmed him with sudden remorse. He trusted himself not for a single backward look now, but rushed out of the studio, leaving her sitting there like the princess of the fairy tale who overcame the genii only by recourse to immortal fire which consumed her also. Alone in his studio the sculptor strode up and down, struggling with the emotion which mastered him. He debated with himself whether Helen loved him or not; yet the more carefully he recalled his interview with her, the more impossible he found it to determine. But hope plucked courage out of this very uncertainty, and clung to the belief that had not Helen in her heart some affection for him, she could not have been so touched. But what of Ninitta? He threw back his head and walked down the studio, his steps sounding sharply upon the hard cement floor. What of Ninitta? He had absurdly dallied with his supposed obligations to her long enough. Now, at least, after this outrage, he repeated to himself, he was free. He was at liberty now--if indeed he had not always been--to consider what he owed to himself; what to the woman he loved. He recalled the hot words he had spoken to the model earlier in the afternoon when the anger of discovery was fresh upon him, and he felt a pang of self-reproach. He could not but know how poignant to Ninitta must be the grief of giving him up, although he assured himself that in the long years of separation she must have become accustomed to live without him, and that her grief would be rather fancied than real. Yet he was too tender-hearted to be wholly at ease after all his reasoning. He at last started out to find Ninitta, perhaps to comfort her, perhaps to cast her off forever. At least to come to some definite conclusion of their doubtful relations. But Ninitta was not to be found. She was not in her attic; nor did she return that night, nor the next day, nor yet the following; and it was to tell of the model's disappearance, and to ask aid in tracing her, that Herman had wished to speak to Helen at the Fenton's reception. XXII. UPON A CHURCH BENCH. Much Ado about Nothing; iii.--3. Herman did not see Helen for several days after the reception, but she came down to the studio Sunday afternoon to begin the repairing of her mutilated bas-relief. The sculptor heard her step pass his door, and felt a thrill at the sound for which he had longingly waited every waking hour since he had heard Helen go out upon the night of Ninitta's disappearance.