breath, and came anew, the downpour rising in spume from the sod outside.
"Won?—Oh, father, I've lost!"
It was there that Aunty May found her, hands clasped, staring blankly before her. She was not crying, had not cried; it would have been better so; the suffering in her face would not have been so terrible had it found the relief of tears. The older woman stopped shortly.
"Helen! What is it?"
But she needed no reply. The old arms which for years had gestured only in irritation went about her hungrily; the old voice which had been so sour and sharp whispered softly in her ear. Helen turned and put her arms about the woman's neck and put her head wearily on a bony shoulder.
"There; there, I heard what he said. It's all over. You've come out on top of th' heap!"
"Oh, Aunty May—it is over—I drove him away; I didn't trust. I didn't take happiness—when it came— He's fought for me even when I suspected him—and I can't ever look into his face again—"
They sat down together in the big chair, Aunty May holding Helen on her lap, talking gently to her, tears in her own eyes, trying to provoke tears for the girl. But Helen talked in short, stiff sentences of her helplessness, the emptiness of her triumph. She had won her big fight but she had lost the joy of life.
The last light faded. Rain continued, a veritable cloudburst. Helen went to her room and bathed and dressed, cleansing herself mechanically. Downstairs
