As the doors clicked, Helen swayed into a chair beside the table, and her head fell forward into her arms. CHAPTER VI ANOTHER WORLD At half-past eight o'clock that evening David walked up the broad steps of the Chambers's house and rang the bell. The footman left him in the great hall, rich with carved oak and old tapestries, and went off with his card. As he waited, he continued to wonder at the telegram he had received half an hour before from Helen, which had merely said, "Can you not call this evening?" Why could she so suddenly desire to see him? He had no faintest guess. In a few minutes the footman returned, led him up the stairway and directed him into the library. A wood fire was burning in the broad fire-place, and on a divan before it she was sitting, all in white. She rose. "Will you draw the doors, please," her voice came to him. He did so, and went toward her eagerly. But his steps slowed. Two or three paces from her he came to a stop. She stood, one hand on the divan's arm, gazing at him with parted lips, and wide, marvelling eyes. The look put a spell upon him; he returned it silently, with a growing bewilderment. For several moments her whole being was brought to a focus in the awed wonder of her face. Then her breast began to rise and fall, her face to twitch, her eyes to flood with tears. The tears glinted down her cheeks and fell upon her swelling breast. She gave them no heed, but continued to hold her quivering face full upon him. "What is it?" he whispered. She stretched out her hands and slowly moved toward him, her eyes never leaving his face. He automatically took her hands. They were warm and tight, and through them he felt her whole body trembling. He thrilled under their pressure and under her look--under her glorious, brimming eyes. As she gazed upon him his last five years ran through her mind--his trial, his prison life, his struggle for a foothold, his dishonoured name. A sob broke from her, and upon it came her low, vibrant voice--quavering, awed: "It was God-like!" He could barely ask, "What?" "What you did." He could not find a word, he was so bewildered, so thrilled by her gaze, by her clinging hands. Her tears continued to drop from her eyes to her heart. There was a momentary silence, then the awed, quavering voice, said slowly: "You never took the money!--the Mission money!" For a space he was utterly dazed. The room swam; he held to her hands for support. Slowly the bewilderment of ignorance passed into the greater bewilderment of knowledge. She knew the truth! The secret of his life that he had hidden from her, thought always to hide from her, she had found out!