With that Christie retired to the big chair, and fell to reading the first book she took up, a good deal embarrassed by her reception, and very curious to know what would come next.

The old woman went away after folding the down coverlet carefully over her darling’s feet, and Helen seemed to go to sleep.

For a time the room was very still; the fire burned softly on the marble hearth, the sun shone warmly on velvet carpet and rich hangings, the delicate breath of flowers blew in through the halt-open door that led to a gay little conservatory, and nothing but the roll of a distant carriage broke the silence now and then.

Christie’s eyes soon wandered from her book to the lovely face and motionless figure on the couch.  Just opposite, in a recess, hung the portrait of a young and handsome man, and below it stood a vase of flowers, a graceful Roman lamp, and several little relics, as if it were the shrine where some dead love was mourned and worshipped still.

As she looked from the living face, so pale and so pathetic in its quietude, to the painted one so full of color, strength, and happiness, her heart ached for poor Helen, and her eyes were wet with tears of pity.  A sudden movement on the couch gave her no time to hide them, and as she hastily looked down upon her book a treacherous drop fell glittering on the page.

“What have you there so interesting?” asked Helen, in that softly imperious tone of hers.

“Don Quixote,” answered Christie, too much abashed to have her wits about her.

Helen smiled a melancholy smile as she rose, saying wearily: 

“They gave me that to make me laugh, but I did not find it funny; neither was it sad enough to make me cry as you do.”

“I was not reading, I was”—­there Christie broke down, and could have cried with vexation at the bad beginning she had made.  But that involuntary tear was better balm to Helen than the most perfect tact, the most brilliant conversation.  It touched and won her without words, for sympathy works miracles.  Her whole face changed, and her mournful eyes grew soft as with the gentle freedom of a child she lifted Christie’s downcast face and said, with a falter in her voice: 

“I know you were pitying me.  Well, I need pity, and from you I’ll take it, because you don’t force it on me.  Have you been ill and wretched too?  I think so, else you would never care to come and shut yourself up here with me!”

“I have been ill, and I know how hard it is to get one’s spirits back again.  I’ve had my troubles, too, but not heavier than I could bear, thank God.”

“What made you ill?  Would you mind telling me about it?  I seem to fancy hearing other people’s woes, though it can’t make mine seem lighter.”

“A piece of the Castle of the Sun fell on my head and nearly killed me,” and Christie laughed in spite of herself at the astonishment in Helen’s face.  “I was an actress once; your mother knows and didn’t mind,” she added, quickly.