“Engaged to Craig Mason!” he said, seizing her arm with a grasp which made her wince with pain. “You are engaged to Craig Mason, and have sat here and listened to me without a word! Are you woman, or a demon?” “Don’t speak to me like that, and let go my arm! You hurt! I tried to tell you, but couldn’t, you influence me so, and——” Helen said, putting her hands over her face and crying out loud. In a moment Mark’s anger left him, and his great love came surging back. “Forgive me,” he said. “I was a brute, but you took me by surprise. Sit down until you are more composed.” He felt for a moment as if the earth were slipping from him, leaving him utterly stranded; then his indomitable will came to the rescue and he was himself again, quiet, tender, earnest, with his magnetic powers in full swing. She had said, “You influence me so,” and this gave him courage. Taking her hands from her face he held them in his and said to her jestingly, “You say no man has ever kissed you since your father died, and you are engaged to Mr. Mason. I am afraid he did not claim his privileges.” “He couldn’t; he had all he could do to keep Dido from running away, and the wheels made such a racket I couldn’t hear half he was saying,” Helen replied between a sob and a laugh as she recalled Craig’s love making, so different from the one she had just experienced. Her spirits were returning and with them her blunted sense of right and wrong, and when the moon looked into the room at a different angle from what it was looking then, there were no tears on her face and her head was on Mark Hilton’s shoulder, as if that were its rightful resting place. Love was triumphant. Conscience had been smothered, or if it pricked at all it was quieted with the thought, “I could not help it, and Craig will soon get over it.” Everything was settled as to what to do and how to do it, Mark suggesting and Helen yielding to whatever he proposed. She knew her mother would be hard to meet and Craig would be harder. “We must be quick,” she said, “or I shall change my mind. I don’t believe I could endure the look on Craig’s face when he knows how false I am.” Mark was fully aware of this. He knew the girl better than she knew herself. Opposition from her mother and reproach from Craig would upset her and he did not mean her to come in contact with either. Fortunately for him it had been arranged that morning that he should go to New York the next night on business for Mr. Taylor. If Helen could be there at the same time all would go well. Could she manage it? “I think so. Yes, I am sure I can,” she said, as they went back to the hotel, where they found Mrs. Tracy very anxious to know what had kept her daughter so long. “The night is so fine that I wanted to enjoy it and see if it would help my head which aches awfully. I must go to bed at once,” Helen said.