Now--now he would have Helen Conway. He would have her and own her, body and soul. He would take her away--as he had planned, and keep her away. That was easy, too--too far away for the whisper of it ever to come back. If he failed in that he would marry her. She was beautiful--and with a little more age and education she would grace The Gaffs. So he might marry her and set her up, a queen over their heads. This was his determination when he went to the mill the first of the week. All the week he watched her, talked with her, was pleasant, gallant and agreeable. But he soon saw that Helen was not the same. There was not the dull wistful resignation in her look, and despair had given way to a cheerfulness he could not understand. There was a brightness in her eyes which made her more beautiful. The unconscious grip which the shamelessness of it all had over him was evidenced in what he did. He confided his plans to Jud Carpenter, and set him to work to discover the cause. "See what's wrong," he said significantly. "I am going to take that girl North with me, and away from here. After that it is no affair of yours." "Anything wrong?" He had reached the point of his moral degradation when right for Helen meant wrong for him. Jud, with a characteristic shrewdness, put his finger quickly on the spot. Edward Conway was sober. Clay saw her daily. "But jes' wait till I see him ag'in--down there. I'll make him drunk enough. Then you'll see a change in the Queen--hey?" And he laughed knowingly. With a little more bitterness she would go to the end of the world with him. It was that day he held her hands in the old familiar way, but when he would kiss her at the gate she still fled, crimson, away. The next morning Clay Westmore walked with her to the mill, and Travis lilted his eyebrows haughtily: "If anything of that kind happens," he said to himself, "nothing can save me." He watched her closely--how beautiful she looked that day--how regally beautiful! She had come wearing the blue silk gown, with the lace and beads which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her work. Her posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine, so natural that it looked not unlike a harp in her hand; her half-bent head and graceful neck, the flushed face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian, rich in color and life. And she saw him and looked up smiling. It was not the smile of happiness. He did not know it because, being blind, he could not know. It was the happiness of work--achievement. He came in smiling. "Why are you so much happier than last week?" "Would you really like to know?" she said, looking him frankly in the eyes. He touched her hair playfully. She moved her head and shook it warningly. "It is because I am at work and father is trying so hard to reform." "I thought maybe it was because you had found out how much I love you."