"No--No! You couldn't. You haven't thought. You couldn't give up all the richness of your life, all your friends, for my poverty, my friendlessness. And this isn't all--nor the worst. There's my disgrace." He paused a moment before the great fact that must always be a barrier between them. "Do you realise, Helen," he went on, "that I can never clear myself. To do that would be to destroy the people of St. Christopher's. I can never do that. I never will." She was thoughtful for several moments. "No, you never can," she said slowly. Then a glow came into her face, and she added suddenly in a tone that vibrated through him: "But I shall marry you anyhow!" He caught her hands. "God bless you!" he said huskily. He shook his head slowly, with pale resolution. "But no. I love you too much, honour you too much, to drag you from your place--to let you marry a criminal!" CHAPTER VII AS LOVE APPORTIONS After David had gone Helen sat gazing into the rich romance of the glowing logs, reproached by the remembrance of her treatment of David, awed by his long sacrifice, thrilled with love and the knowledge of his innocence. Her imagination showed her scenes of David's trial, of his prison life, of his struggles to regain place in the world, and she cried softly as she looked upon him amid these travails. That she had not believed in him despite appearance and his own declaration, she regarded as evidence of her weakness, and she told herself that her five years of suffering were too light a punishment for her lack of faith. She should have learned his innocence--and lost him! Presently her mind, rehearsing the evening, came to David's statement that, for St. Christopher's sake, he must always remain a guilty man. She paused before the declaration. Yes, he was right. As she admitted this a calm fell upon her, and she saw, as she had not seen before, the distance that lay between them. He could not come to her; he was bound where he was. If they came together, she must go to him. Could she go? She loved the ease and beauty which surrounded her; and this love now pointed out that going to him meant resigning all the comforts of her father's house, all things that thus far had comprised her life. And not alone resigning them, but substituting for them the cramped, mean surroundings of a poor man. Was the love of a poor man sufficient to balance, and balance for the rest of life, the good things that would be given up? She had said to David with ringing joy, "I shall marry you anyhow!"--and now, with the same glow of the soul, she swept her present life out of consideration. Yes, she could give it up! But following immediately upon the impulse of renunciation came the realisation that David was not only a poor man--he was, and must be always, to the rest of the world a criminal. Was her love strong enough, and was she strong enough, to share a criminal's dishonour and struggles--even though she knew him to be guiltless?