For a moment Mrs. Desmond allowed her hand to remain passively in Helen's. There was something pleasant after all in the touch of those warm strong young fingers; something that spoke of warmth, of comfort, almost of support to this cold-natured woman who was feeling all her hopes crumbling about her, who was face to face with mortal sorrow and pain for the first time in her smooth easy life. One gentle hand-pressure, one caressing movement, and the chasm that divided these two might have been bridged over. But it was not to be. The remembrance of Helen's past waywardness, and of the terrible results of the poor child's foolish escapade, swept over her, obliterating more kindly feelings. She withdrew her hand coldly, and moved away a few paces. Helen, thrown back upon herself, felt her better feelings die within her, and grew half-ashamed of her uncalled-for exhibition of tenderness. "I only came to ask you to allow me to see my father," she said, speaking unconsciously in those sullen tones that she had cultivated in old days, because she knew that they annoyed her stepmother. "I am sorry if I disturbed you, but I thought I heard you moving before I knocked." "That I can scarcely believe, Helen," returned Mrs. Desmond, now completely master of herself. "However, whether you did or not matters little. As to your father, he is too ill to see anybody." "He can't be too ill to see me," returned Helen desperately, her wrath rising at the notion that she, her father's child, should be classed with "anybody" as though she were a stranger. "I should not disturb him. When he had fever in India--" Poor Helen! as usual, she had struck the wrong chord, for Mrs. Desmond could not endure any allusion to those old Indian days in which she had had no part. "Spare me these discussions, Helen," she interrupted sharply. "It is all very well to profess so much affection for your father. Remember that but for you he would not be lying as he is now." "But for me!" "Yes. Dr. Russell says that he contracted his illness that evening when, distressed as he was by your disgraceful behaviour, he followed you and brought you home." "Dr. Russell says so?" "Yes." "And if--if--" "If we lose him, do you mean? In that case, Helen, you will need no words of mine, I should think, to point out the terrible consequences of giving way to temper."