Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/274

 know it, fascinated her, held her spellbound, possessed her. Closer his lips came to hers, closer, until they touched her—and then, with a cry, she sprang back, and her hands were fiercely pressed against her cheeks, her throbbing temples. Was she mad! Mad! Was it for this that she had forced herself to give him the opportunity to speak to-night, when her motive was so different, when it had seemed the only right thing left for her to do!

And now, still holding her temples, she raised her eyes to Thornton—he had stepped back like a man stricken, his hands dropped to his sides.

"I—we are mad!" she whispered.

"Helena!" he said in a numbed way; and again: "Helena!" Then, with an effort to control his voice: "You—you do not care—you do not love me?"

"No," she said—and thereafter for a long time a silence held between them.

Then Thornton spoke.

"Some day perhaps, Helena," he said, "you could learn to love me—for I would teach you. Perhaps now you feel that your whole duty lies here in this work to which you have so unselfishly given your life; but I would not hinder that, only try to help as best I could. Perhaps I have been abrupt, have spoken too soon—it is only a few weeks since I saw you first, but it seems as though in those few weeks I had come to know you as if I had known you all my life and—"