never swerved. When his college days were over and he was about to sail for Europe on an extended tour, he found it impossible to say farewell 25 without speaking to her of the subject which lay nearest his heart.

25

Helen was very young and inexperienced, and these were the first words of love to which she had ever listened. Her tender heart was deeply touched, and Guy went away gladdened by her shy expression of sorrow at his departure, and by the whispered "Yes" that her lips spoke falteringly.

Helen had accepted her youthful lover, and many were the rejoicings among the small Hetherford circle over what they termed Helen's engagement; although the girl herself looked a little grave over so serious a term. At the manor the new relationship was accepted gladly, for it seemed only a fitting ending to Guy's long friendship in their family.

Three years slipped by; years in which Guy bent every energy to the study of architecture, which he had chosen as his profession. He had decided talent, and by continued assiduity was making a name for himself among his colleagues.

Little change had taken place in Hetherford except such as the flight of time must necessarily bring. Helen was now quite a woman, with a pretty air of gravity which the new cares had lent to her.

When finally, one crisp October day, Guy walked in upon them, his face bronzed by the recent ocean trip, his slender figure grown broad and strong, his blue eyes beaming with happiness, he was welcomed with the greatest warmth of affection, and as they sat about the crackling flames in the manor hall his long absence seemed almost a dream.

It was during the following winter that Helen had 26 her first misgivings as to her real feeling for Guy. Indeed, sometimes, her engagement oppressed her strangely, and she was assailed by an overwhelming longing to be free.

26

Women are indeed incomprehensible, and when the largess of their love is not given, it is rare, save through some sharp lesson, that they appreciate to the full the men whose hearts they possess. In this Helen was, perhaps, in nowise different from the rest of her sex. Be this as it may, Guy's unchanging love and devotion sometimes wearied her, and failed to call forth an answering love in her own heart. Yet the months glided by, and she had not the courage to tell her lover the truth. She was not always 

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