“Some people are made so, I suppose, Helen. I know I took to you at first sight! I shall never forget the first time I saw you--when I came to this country a lonely little foreigner,--and you, a great beautiful lady, for such you seemed to me, though you have told me since you were only a great gawky girl--I know that could never have been--you ran to meet me, and took me in your arms, and kissed me. I was as if I had crossed the sea of death and found paradise in your bosom! I am not likely to forget you for Mr. Wingfold, good and kind and strong as he is! Even SHE could not make me forget you, Helen. But neither you nor I can do without Mr. Wingfold any more, I fancy. I wish you liked him better!--but you will in time. You see he’s not one to pay young ladies compliments, as I have heard some parsons do; and he may be a little--no, not unpolished, not that--that’s not what I mean--but unornamental in his manners! Only, you see,--” “Only, you see, Poldie,” interrupted Helen, with a smile, a rare thing between them, “you know all about him, though you never saw him before.” “That is true,” returned Leopold; “but then he came to me with his door open, and let me walk in. It doesn’t take long to know a man then. He hasn’t got a secret like us, Helen,” he added, sadly. “What did he say to you?” “Much what he said to you from the pulpit the other day, I should think.” Then she was right! For all his hardness and want of sympathy, the curate had yet had regard to her entreaties, and was not going to put any horrid notions about duty and self-sacrifice into the poor boy’s head! “He’s coming again to-morrow,” added Leopold, almost gleefully, “and then perhaps he will tell me more, and help me on a bit!” “Did he tell you he wants to bring a friend with him?” “No.” “I can’t see the good of taking more people into our confidence.” “Why should he not do what he thinks best, Helen? You don’t interfere with the doctor--why should you with him? When a man is going to the bottom as fast as he can, and another comes diving after him--it isn’t for me to say how he is to take hold of me. No, Helen; when I trust, I trust out and out.” Helen sighed, thinking how ill that had worked with Emmeline. Ever since George Bascombe had talked about the Polwarths that day they met him in the park, she had felt a sort of physical horror of them, as if they were some kind of unclean creature that ought not to be in existence at all. But when Leopold uttered himself thus, she felt that the current of events had seized her, and that she could only submit to be carried along. CHAPTER XXVII. DIVINE SERVICE.