WHEN HELEN WENT downstairs half an hour later she found Stephen in the big room waiting for her. He had been smoking ever since she left him—the ash-tray bore witness to that—and walking up and down the room. The two Sheraton armchairs had been carelessly shoved out of their usual places to clear a straight path from the fireplace to the window. As Helen entered the room she replaced one of the chairs, apparently unaware of Stephen’s agitation.

“Well?” said Stephen at sight of her.

Helen looked up at him and smiled.

“She’s asleep,” she said, and started to replace the other chair.

“Poor child. Poor child!” Stephen broke out in a tone that was almost a groan. “It’s torture to me to think my own child should have to bear the burden of my mistake like this.”

Immediately Helen crossed the room to Stephen. He was standing by the fireplace staring down upon the unlighted logs.

“Why, Stephen,” she said gently, reassuringly, “she’ll be better in the morning. It’s hard to see her suffer, I know, but it’s mostly from shock. In a day or two she’ll see clearer.”

“See clearer!” Stephen exclaimed bitterly. “Why, Helen, don’t you know who the man is whom Stella has married?” he inquired.

“Yes, I know.”

“Well!” he shrugged. “Don’t you see it justifies our suspicions? For Laurel’s sake I hoped they might never be justified. I didn’t want the evidence which Morley Smith brought to my attention several years ago forced before me for consideration again. For Laurel’s sake I’ve hoped there was that spark of controlling decency in her mother that wouldn’t accept intimate relations with a man like Munn, even though she could endure his society. That hope has gone. This act of hers has destroyed it.”

Helen gazed at Stephen and shook her head slowly, wonderingly. “You, too?” she murmured.

He didn’t hear her.

“To think,” he went on, still bitterly, still despairingly—“to think she chose, of her own free will, existence with a man like Munn after Laurel had given up everything to be with her! To think she was willing to allow her child’s wonderful love for her, her child’s wonderful loyalty to her, to become shame and scorn! To think of it!”

“Yes, to think of it!” repeated Helen, softly, starry-eyed.

“What do you mean?” demanded Stephen, looking at her sharply. Why did she speak like that?

Helen replied slowly, distinctly, looking at Stephen. “Laurel is here. She is here to stay. Who has accomplished it?”

He didn’t answer her—just looked at her a moment, then shook his head, and gazed down again into the dead logs in the fireplace.

Helen placed her hand very lightly on one of his folded arms.