It had been an easy task to secure Helen's friendship, and then to so use her influence with the girl as to effect the annulling of the engagement. Miss Stuart knew Guy's nature well enough to feel almost sure that, however sorely he might be tempted, he would probably never betray his knowledge of that unpleasant episode in her past; so, trading on the man's very uprightness, she revenged herself for the bitter sting of wounded vanity that rankled in her memory.

Her well-planned scheme had been marvelously successful, but one unlooked-for element had entered into it; for Helen's simplicity and purity of nature, her lack of vanity, coquetry, or duplicity, above all, her entire confidence and trust, had touched a tender chord in the heart of this cold and worldly woman, and were in themselves a power so great she felt herself held by them. Could she have foreseen the future, she would, perhaps, have struggled against this most disturbing element.

Guy's return to Hetherford with the announcement that his engagement was at an end, and that he was going immediately abroad, created quite a ferment among the good people at the manor and Rose Cottage, and many were their fruitless conjectures as to the cause of Helen's sudden change of feeling. Across at the parsonage, happy-go-lucky Nan puckered up her jolly face, pondered long over this vexatious question, and hit at last upon the correct solution of it, but wisely kept her own counsel.

Mrs. Appleton took her son's disappointment very much to heart, and when Helen came home again Rose Cottage was closed and its occupants once more gone abroad. When the buckboard rolled by the deserted little place Helen drew her breath sharply, then, catching Jean's reproachful eyes upon her, began hurriedly to speak of other things. The Lawrences frankly avowed to her their regret and disappointment, but not one word of explanation did the girl vouchsafe to them, so after a little they accepted the inevitable, and Guy's name was no longer spoken among them.

And thus it was that of the Lawrence girls, Helen alone had the proud distinction of having had a genuine love affair, the memory of which, however, was tinged with deep regret, and caused her naught but pain. Perhaps she felt intuitively that she had done wrong. What was a pleasant friendship compared to the love of a true man's heart? Yet the thought of a marriage with Guy was out of the question.

So the foolish girl reasoned. Time brings many changes, however, and perhaps what once seemed to Helen a catastrophe may one day seem to open the very gates of Paradise.

And now that we have taken a leaf from Helen's past, let us resume our way.