At last he said, gently, "Helen, dear, I love you. I want you for my wife. I want you more than I ever wanted anything. Nothing in the world is of any value to me compared with your love. But, dear girl, don't you see that I can't take you like this? You cannot sell yourself to me--even for such a price. I cannot buy you." He turned away.
"Forgive me, Jim," she cried. "I did not realize what I was saying. I--I was thinking of little Maggie--I--I know you would not do what you are doing if you did not think you were right. Take me home now, please, Jim."
Silently they went out to his automobile. Tenderly he helped her into the car and tucked the robe about her. The guards swung open the big gates, and they swept away into the night. Past the big Mill and the Flats, through the silent business district and up the hill they glided swiftly--steadily. And no word passed between them.
They were nearing the gate to the Ward estate when Helen suddenly grasped her companion's arm with a low exclamation.
At the same moment McIver instinctively checked the speed of his car.
They had both seen the shadowy form of a man walking slowly past the entrance to Helen's home.
To Helen, there was something strangely familiar in the dim outlines of the moving figure. As they drove slowly on, passing the man who was now in the deeper shadows of the trees and bushes which, at this spot grew close to the fence, she turned her head, keeping her eyes upon him.
Suddenly a flash of light stabbed the darkness. A shot rang out. And another.
With a cry, she started from her seat; and before McIver, who had involuntarily stopped the car, could check her, she had leaped from her place beside him and was running toward the fallen man.
As she knelt beside the form on the ground McIver put his hand on her shoulder. "Helen," he said, sharply, as if to bring her to her senses, "you must not--here, let me--"
Without moving from her position she turned her face up to him. "Don't you understand, Jim? It is Captain Charlie."
Two watchmen on the Ward estate, who had heard the shots, came running up.
McIver tried to insist that Helen go with him in his roadster to the house for help and a larger car, but she refused.
When he returned with John, the chauffeur and one of the big Ward machines, after telephoning the police and the doctor, Helen was kneeling over the wounded man just as he had left her.