"Cheer up, lad! If we can't untie the knot we'll lose no time cutting the string. There may be some fun in this business before we get through with it."
I began telling him of some of my own experiences, and won him to a cheerier mood. When we came round to the Holbrooks again his depression had passed, and we were on the best of terms.
"But there's one thing we can't get away from, Donovan. I've got to protect Helen; don't you see? I've got to take care of her, whatever comes."
"But you can't take care of her father. He's hopeless."
"I could give him this money myself, couldn't I? I can do it, and I've about concluded that I ought to do it."
"But that would be a waste. It would be like giving whisky to a drunkard. Money has been at the bottom of all this trouble."
Gillespie threw up his hands with a gesture of helplessness.
"I shall undoubtedly lose such wits as I have if we don't get somewhere in this business pretty soon. But, Donovan, there's something I want to ask you. I don't like to speak of it, but when we were coming away from that infernal island, after our scrap with the dago, there were two people walking on the bluff--a man and a woman, and the woman was nearest us. She seemed to be purposely putting herself in the man's way so we couldn't see him. It didn't seem possible that Helen could be there--but?"
He clearly wished to be assured, and I answered at once:
"I saw them; it couldn't have been Helen. It was merely a similarity of figure. I couldn't distinguish her face at all. Very likely they were Port Annandale cottagers."
"I thought so myself," he replied, evidently relieved. It did not seem necessary to tell him of Rosalind at Red Gate; that was my secret, and I was not yet ready to share it.
"I've got to talk to somebody, and I want to tell you something, Donovan. I can't deny that there are times when Helen doesn't seem--well, all that I have thought her at other times. Sometimes she seems selfish and hard, and all that. And I know she hasn't treated Miss Pat right; it isn't square for her to take Miss Pat's bounty and then work against her. But I make allowances, Donovan."
"Of course," I acquiesced, wishing to cheer him. "So do I. She has been hard put in this business. And a man's love can't always be at par--or a woman's either! The only thing a man ought to exact of the woman he marries is that she put up a cheerful breakfast-table. Nothing else counts very much. Start the day right, hand him his gloves and a kind word at the front door as he sallies forth to the day's battle, and constancy and devotion will be her reward. I have spoken words of wisdom. Harken, O Chief Button-maker of the World!"