Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/197

A Puritan Bohemia "But you cared!"

"I care yet, only differently. We're the best friends in the world. Things have fallen into the right place, that is all. I sometimes wonder how the old boyish passion could have lasted so long. Now it is settled. You see, there is nothing so completely gone, when it is gone, as a feeling."

There was a silence.

"Anne never quite sympathized with my wish to help the unfortunate. She could not enter into that. I feel more and more sure that that is the enduring part of me, my permanent self. In this you and I are one."

"We must do a great many things," said Helen thoughtfully. "Of course we cannot leave mother, to go to live in the slums. When father died I promised to stay with her always. But we can help with money."

"I'll go to the city frequently to see how things are getting on."

Helen pointed, smiling, to a space among the trees.