midnight
`` Only one -- Miss Helen Deane is accounted a beauty , She is an heiress , too , and the best match in all the city of L -- , '' answered Mr. Thornton , more to himself than Maggie , who at the mention of Helen Deane felt a cold shadow folding itself around her heart . Alas , poor Maggie Lee . The world has long since selected the proud Helen as the future bride of Graham Thornton , who , as he walks slowly back across the snow-clad field , tramples upon the delicate footprints you have made , and wishes it were thus easy to blot out from his heart all memory of you ! Poor , poor Maggie Lee , Helen Deane _ is _ beautiful , far more beautiful than you , and when in her robes of purple velvet , with her locks of golden hair shading her soft eyes of blue , she flits like a sunbeam through the spacious rooms of Greystone Hall , waking their echoes with her voice of richest melody , what marvel if Graham Thornton does pay her homage , and reserves all thoughts of you for the midnight hour , when the hall is still and Helen 's voice is no longer heard ? He is but a man -- a man , too , of the world , and so , though you , Maggie Lee , are very dear to him , he does not think it possible that he can raise you to his rank -- make you the honored mistress of his home , and still lower himself not one iota from the station he has ever filled . And though his mother loves you , too , 't is not with a mother 's love , and should children ever climb her knee calling her son their sire , she would deem you a _ governess _ befitting such as they , and nothing more . But all this Maggie does not know , and when the visiting is over and Helen Deane is gone , she goes back to her old place and sits again at the feet of Graham Thornton , never wondering why he seems so often lost in thought , or why he looks so oft into her eyes of brown , trying to read there that he has not wronged her .