doing him harm, but, on the contrary, bringing him great happiness; and some day you will wonder that you ever doubted it. You may trust me, dear. I would not say it if I did not believe it. Don't think it must necessarily be right to do whatever is hard and painful to you. We were not sent into this world to make ourselves miserable. And don't be angry with me for interfering. I feel as if you were my big daughter, and I can't help trying to keep you from spoiling your own life.'

Helen did not answer that day.

She

She could not do so. felt unable to come to any decision. It seemed to her as if she had been left without guidance. She had meant to do right, and it had been so hard. Could all that striving and sorrow have been unnecessary and useless, and even foolish and wrong? If only Aunt Madge had been alive! It was not the poor loving mother of whom she thought in her distress; she had never known her mother. The pale tired face and the patient eyes had passed out of her life when she was little more than a baby; when a brave, heartbroken woman had driven away alone through the stone gateway at Laneithin into the darkness and rain of the desolate Cornish roads, leaving behind, to forget her, the child she would have died for.

Helen Treveryan was awake far into the night, fighting her battle alone; but there could be only one end to such a conflict. At last, as she knelt by her bedside, her hands clasped before her, and her beautiful earnest face white with suffering, while the lamplight fell like a glory about the bright brown hair, conviction and peace came to her, and she ceased to struggle against her happiness. She rose with shining eyes and a deep joy in her heart. It was long past midnight, and everything was silent as she walked to her window and drew aside the curtain. The night was fine and still, and the stars clear. She could see the dark rounded outlines of the hills against the sky, and a single light gleamed faintly from a house among the trees to the northward. She stood a few minutes at the window, with her hand on the curtain, and then came back to her writing-table and sat down. This time she wrote a few words only

MY DEAREST-I cannot try to be brave any more. I have never changed for an instant. How could I think you anything but good and true and unselfish when you are giving up so much for me? You said your mother pressed you to go home. I want you to write by this mail and say you will go directly, if you can get leave. When

you come back, if you still want me, I will come to you whether she will have me or not. I only hope I am not doing wrong. I shall never forgive myself if I find in the end that I have brought you unhappiness. Please don't refuse to go home. I could not be happy unless I felt I had done all in my power to prevent things going wrong. You will not distress me by refusing?

Ever your own

HELEN.

CHAPTER XX

HOME AGAIN

GUY did what he was asked to do. He hesitated, of course, and he would have dearly liked at all events to see Helen before leaving India; but this would not have been altogether easy to manage, and after ascertaining that the leave was to be got, he made up his mind to go. To this resolution he was largely influenced by Mrs. Aylmer, who knew that Helen was in earnest, and felt that the sooner the thing was done the better.

Guy wrote a week in advance to his mother, and said he was coming, but he warned her that this meant no change in his feelings. 'As you wish it,' he wrote, 'I have asked for leave, but please do not misunderstand me. I cannot give Helen up, and Pitt Wright's lies only make me care the more for her. She is the only woman I can ever marry.'

Before the end of May Guy was on board the P. & O. steamer Indus in Bombay Harbour. It had been a frightfully hot journey down by train. During the day the sun beat through the roof and sides of the railway carriage, and seemed to beat into his very brain as he lay half undressed on the leather-covered seat, and even at night the heat was very oppressive. Bombay was comparatively cool, not more than 90° or so in the shade, and by the time he got on board ship he was happy again.

He stood leaning over the side, just before the start, thinking how short a time it seemed since he first saw that coast, and how much had happened to him. It was a curious scene. The deck amidships was covered with baggage and chairs. Passengers and their friends were gathered here and there in knots, while the stewards and lascars were at work about the gangways.

Close to Guy, on the same side of the ship, stood Colonel Jackson, lately a Civil officer in Berar, who was leaving India

' for good,' after thirty years of hard work. One or two old acquaintances who happened to be in Bombay had come to see him off; but he was not a Bombay man himself, and his only real friend was his native bearer, Sri Kishen, who had served him faithfully since he was a young man. Sri Kishen had cheated him throughout, in a small patient way, and Jackson had been very angry with him at times; but they had never parted, and now the two men stood looking at one another in a silent, lifelong farewell that was very pathetic.

Still more pathetic was the little group near the stern-a man and his wife and small daughter, six or seven years old. All three looked white and ill, but the husband, a district officer, was going back alone to his work in an out-of-the-way station among the rice-swamps, to manage a couple of million of Bengalis. He hoped to join the others 'in a year or two,' but he could not afford to go on leave yet. The child was sobbing on his shoulder, with her arms round his neck, and his wife was begging him to let them go back with him even now; but he only shook his head and tried to speak cheerily.

Near them was a young girl in widow's mourning. She was alone, and was looking at them with envy. What was their sorrow to hers? She had come out hardly a year ago—a bride of nineteen, just married to Ronald Stewart of the Punjab Cavalry. And now Ronald Stewart was lying in a little desolate cemetery on the frontier, dead of typhoid fever, and she was going back to her people. Two or three young men were laughing and talking not far from her. Jenkinson of the Indo-Chinese Bank was going home on his first leave, and his friends were seeing him off, amid a good deal of noisy chaff savouring of pegs at the Yacht Club. 'Take care, old chap,' said one of them, a mealy-faced youth with prominent blue eyes, looking at the young widow; they're always dangerous. She's got her eye on you already, I'll bet.' But she was thinking of her dead husband, with his strong hands and steady eyes, who could have taken young Jenkinson and shaken the soul out of him with hardly an effort.

At last all the mails had been brought on board, and the final signal was given. Colonel Jackson shook hands with his college friends, and patted Sri Kishen on the shoulder with something very like a caress; and the Bengal man kissed his wife, and unfastened the child's arms from his neck, and walked away, with his sallow bearded face working all over; and the young

men went down the side into the boat, laughing and talking still; and then the screw throbbed and churned up the foam, and the ship's head was brought slowly round to the westward, and they steamed away into the sunset-homeward bound.

Guy soon settled down. He had sent off a farewell letter to Helen, protesting a little too much perhaps, and had then gone off and bought himself a very comfortable long cane chair, with a hole in the arm for a soda-water tumbler, and a place for books.

In this chair he spent a large part of his time, comfortably dressed in flannels and tennis-shoes, reading novels and poetry. It was very hot under the double awning, but the lazy unceremonious life suited him well. He was a good sailor, and, moreover, there was no rough weather. Day after day the great ship glided on over a calm blue sea without a ripple. Now and then some flying fish would rise and skim away in the sunlight, just touching the surface at intervals, their reflections moving in the water below them. Looking over the ship's bow it seemed as if the stem were cutting through deep blue ice, the foam falling in a white heap to right and left like snow. The nights were very beautiful, soft and starlit. One or two of the larger planets made a clear separate track across the sea. The long smooth wave which went away from the ship's side was luminous with phosphorescence, and the water which was pumped out with every beat of the engines seemed full of living fire.

After five or six days' voyage, the ship stopped for a few hours at Aden, where Guy landed and posted a letter for India. Then he went on board again, and sat watching the wonderful sunset colours upon the rocks, and talking to Mrs. Stewart.

He had got to know her well by this time. She had been placed next to him at meals; and he had been touched by her sad face and gentle manner. She was a slight fair woman, and looked very pretty in her plain black dress. At first she had been rather afraid of him, but he seemed and was so unaffectedly sorry for her, and his manner was so tender and respectful, that she soon got over her shyness, and found his conversation a real help and comfort. He put her finally at her ease by telling her all about Helen, and by being good to the Bengal man's child, little May Burton, who took to him at once as children always did. The mother, poor woman, hardly left her cabin, and Mrs. Stewart had almost taken charge of May.

When they got into the Red Sea there was a smart easterly