"His train goes in an hour or so," said Mrs. Roberts, not very
graciously.

"I think I will see if he is downstairs," Helen responded; "I wish
to speak to him before he goes." And so she descended and found Mr.
Howard seated alone upon the piazza.

Taking a seat beside him, she said, "I did not thank you when I left
you in the carriage, Mr. Howard, for having been so kind to me; but
I was so wrapped up in my worry--"

"I understood perfectly," put in the other. "I saw that you felt too
keenly about your discovery to have anything to say to me."

"I feel no less keenly about it now," said Helen; "but I could not
let you go away until I had spoken to you." She gazed very earnestly
at him as she continued: "I have to tell you how much you have done
for me, and how I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart. I
simply cannot say how much all that you have shown me has meant to
me; I should have cared for nothing but to have you tell me what it
would be right for me to do with my life,--if only it had not been
for this dreadful misfortune of Arthur's, which makes it seem as if
it would be wicked for me to think about anything."

Mr. Howard sat gazing in front of him for a moment, and then he said
gently, "What if the change that you speak of were to be
accomplished, Miss Davis, without your ever thinking about it? For
what is it that makes the difference between being thoughtless and
selfish, and being noble and good, if it be not simply to walk
reverently in God's great temple of life, and to think with sorrow
of one's own self? Believe me, my dear friend, the best men that
have lived on earth have seen no more cause to be pleased with
themselves than you."

"That may be true, Mr. Howard," said Helen, sadly, "but it can do me
no good to know it. It does not make what happens to Arthur a bit
less dreadful to think of."

"It is the most painful fact about all our wrong," the other
answered, "that no amount of repentance can ever alter the
consequences. But, Miss Davis, that is a guilt which all creation
carries on its shoulders; it is what is symbolized in the Fall of
Man--that he has to realize that he might have had infinite beauty
and joy for his portion, if only the soul within him had never
weakened and failed. Let me tell you that he is a lucky man who can
look back at all his life and see no more shameful guilt than yours,
and no consequence worse than yours can be." As Mr. Howard spoke he
saw a startled look cross the girl's face, and he added, "Do not
suppose that I am saying that to comfort you, for it is really the
truth. It oftens happens too, that the natures that are strongest
and most ardent in their search for righteousness have the worst
sins to remember."

Helen did not answer for several moments, for the thought was
strange to her; then suddenly she gazed at the other very earnestly
and said: "Mr. Howard, you are a man who lives for what is beautiful
and high,--suppose that YOU had to carry all through your life the
burden of such guilt as mine?"

The man's voice was trembling slightly as he answered her: "It is
not hard for me to suppose that, Miss Davis; I HAVE such a burden to
carry." As he raised his eyes he saw a still more wondering look
upon her countenance.

"But the consequences!" she exclaimed. "Surely, Mr. Howard, you
could not bear to live if you knew--"

"I have never known the consequences," said the man, as she stopped
abruptly; "just as you may never know them; but this I know, that
yours could not be so dreadful as mine must be. I know also that I
am far more to blame for them than you."

Helen could not have told what caused the emotion which made her
shudder so just then as she gazed into Mr. Howard's dark eyes. Her
voice was almost a whisper as she said, "And yet you are GOOD!"

"I am good," said the man gently, "with all the goodness that any
man can claim, the goodness of trying to be better. You may be that
also."

Helen sat for a long time in silence after that, wondering at what
was passing in her own mind; it was as if she had caught a sudden
glimpse into a great vista of life. She had always before thought of
this man's suffering as having been physical; and the deep movement
of sympathy and awe which stirred her now was one step farther from
her own self-absorption, and one step nearer to the suffering that
is the heart of things.

But Helen had to keep that thought and dwell upon it in solitude;
there was no chance for her to talk with Mr. Howard any more, for
she heard her aunt's step in the hall behind her. She had only time
to say, "I am going home myself this afternoon; will you come there
to see me, Mr. Howard? I cannot tell you how much pleasure it would
give me."

"There is nothing I should like to do more," the man answered; "I
hope to keep your friendship. "When would you like me to come?"

"Any time that you can," replied Helen. "Come soon, for I know how
unhappy I shall be."

That was practically the last word she said to Mr. Howard, for her
aunt joined them, and after that the conversation was formal. It was
not very long before the carriage came for him, and Helen pressed
his hand gratefully at parting, and stood leaning against a pillar
of the porch, shading her eyes from the sun while she watched the
carriage depart. Then she sat down to wait for it to return from the
depot for her, which it did before long; and so she bid farewell to
her aunt.

It was a great relief to Helen; and while we know not what emotions
it may cause to the reader, it is perhaps well to say that he may
likewise pay his last respects to the worthy matron, who will not
take part in the humble events of which the rest of our story must
be composed.

For Helen was going home, home to the poor little parsonage of
Oakdale! She was going with a feeling of relief in her heart second
only to her sorow; the more she had come to feel how shallow and
false was the splendor that had allured her, the more she had found
herself drawn to her old home, with its memories that were so dear
and so beautiful. She felt that there she might at least think of
Arthur all that she chose, and meet with nothing to affront her
grief; and also she found herself thinking of her father's love with
a new kind of hunger.

When she arrived, she found Mr. Davis waiting for her with a very
anxious look upon his countenance; he had stopped at Hilltown on his
way, and learned about Arthur's disappearance, and then heard from
Elizabeth what she knew about Helen's engagement. The girl flung
herself into his arms, and afterwards, quite overcome by the
emotions that surged up within her, sank down upon her knees before
him and sobbed out the whole story, her heart bursting with sorrow
and contrition; as he lifted her up and kissed her and whispered his
beautiful words of pardon and comfort, Helen found it a real
homecoming indeed.

Mr. Davis was also able to calm her worry a little by telling her
that he did not think it possible that Arthur would keep his
whereabouts secret from him very long. "When I find him, dear
child," he said, "it will all be well again, for we will believe in
love, you and I, and not care what the great world says about it. I
think I could be well content that you should marry our dear
Arthur."

"But, father, I do not love him," put in Helen faintly.

"That may come in time," said the other, kissing her tenderly, and
smiling. "There is no need to talk of it, for you are too young to
marry, anyway. And in the meantime we must find him."

There was a long silence after that. Helen sat down on the sofa
beside her father and put her arms about him and leaned her head
upon his bosom, drinking in deep drafts of his pardon and love. She
told him about Mr. Howard, and of the words of counsel which he had
given her, and how he was coming to see her again. Afterwards the
conversation came back to Arthur and his love for Helen, and then
Mr. Davis went on to add something that caused Helen to open her
eyes very wide and gaze at him in wonder.

"There is still another reason for wishing to find him soon," he
said, "for something else has happened to-day that he ought to know
about."

"What is it?" asked Helen.

"I don't know that I ought to tell you about it just now," said the
other, "for it is a very sad story. But someone was here to see
Arthur this morning--someone whom I never expected to see again in
all my life."

"To see Arthur?" echoed the girl in perplexity. "Who could want to
see Arthur?" As her father went on she gave a great start.

"It was his mother," said Mr. Davis.

And Helen stared at him, gasping for breath as she echoed the words,
"His mother!"

"You may well be astonished," said the clergyman. "But the woman
proved beyond doubt that she was really the person who left Arthur
with me."

"You did not recognize her?"

"No, Helen; for it has been twenty-one or two years since I saw her,
and she has changed very much since then. But she told me that in
all that time she has never once lost sight of her boy, and has been
watching all that he did."

"Where has she been?"

"She did not tell me," the other answered, "but I fancy in New York.
The poor woman has lived a very dreadful life, a life of such
wretched wickedness that we cannot even talk about it; I think I
never heard of more cruel suffering. I was glad that you were not
here to see her, or know about it until after she was gone; she said
that she had come to see Arthur once, because she was going away to
die."

"To die!" exclaimed the girl, in horror.

"Yes," said Mr. Davis, "to die; she looked as if she could not live
many days longer. I begged her to let me see that she was provided
for, but she said that she was going to find her way back to her old
home, somewhere far off in the country, and she would hear of
nothing else. She would not tell the name of the place, nor her own
name, but she left a letter for Arthur, and begged me to find him
and give it to him, so that he might come and speak to her once if
he cared to do so. She begged me to forgive her for the trouble she
had caused me, and to pray that God would forgive her too; and then
she bade me farewell and dragged herself away."

Mr. Davis stopped, and Helen sat for a long time staring ahead of
her, with a very frightened look in her eyes, and thinking, "Oh, we
MUST find Arthur!" Then she turned to her father, her lips trembling
and her countenance very pale. "Tell me," she said, in a low,
awe-stricken voice, "a long time ago someone must have wronged that
woman."

"Yes, dear," said Mr. Davis, "when she was not even as old as you
are. And the man who wronged her was worth millions of dollars,
Helen, and could have saved her from all her suffering with a few of
them if he cared to. No one but God knows his name, for the woman
would not tell it."

Helen sat for a moment or two staring at him wildly; and then
suddenly she buried her head in his bosom and burst into tears,
sobbing so cruelly that her father was sorry he had told her what he
had. He knew why that story moved her so, and it wrung his heart to
think of it,--that this child of his had put upon her own shoulders
some of that burden of the guilt of things, and must suffer beneath
it, perhaps for the rest of her days.

When Helen gazed up at him again there was the old frightened look
upon her face, and all his attempts to comfort her were useless.
"No, no!" she whispered. "No, father! I cannot even think of peace
again, until we have found Arthur!"

  Freundliches Voglein!






CHAPTER XII.





  "A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,
    Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.
  This does not come with houses or with gold,
    With place, with honor, and a flattering crew;
  'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold."

Three days passed by after Helen had returned to her father, during
which the girl stayed by herself most of the time. When the breaking
off of her engagement was known, many of her old friends came to see
her, but the hints that they dropped did not move her to any
confidences; she felt that it would not be possible for her to find
among them any understanding of her present moods. Her old life, or
rather the life to which she had been looking forward, seemed to her
quite empty and shallow, and there was nothing useful that she knew
of to do except to offer to help her father in such ways as she
could. She drew back into her own heart, giving most of her time to
thinking about Mr. Howard and Arthur, and no one but her father knew
why it was that she was so subdued and silent.

It was only on the third morning, when there came a letter from Mr.
Howard saying that he was coming out that afternoon to see her, that
Helen seemed to be interested and stirred again. She went to the
window more than once to look for him; and when at last her friend
had arrived, and the two were seated in the parlor, she said to him
without waiting for any circumstance, "I have been wishing very much
to see you, Mr. Howard, because there is something I am anxious to
talk to you about, if you will let me."

"I am sorry to say that it is about myself," she went on, when the
other had expressed his willingness to hear her, "for I want to ask
you to help me, and to give me some advice. I ought to have asked
you the questions I am going to before this, but the last time I saw
you I could think about nothing but Arthur. They only came to me
after you had gone."

"What are they?" asked the man.

"You must knew, Mr. Howard," said Helen, "that it is you who have
shown me the wrongness of all that I was doing in my life, and
stirred me with a desire to do better. I find now that such thoughts
have always been so far from me that the wish to be right is all
that I have, and I do not know at all what to do. It seemed to me
that I would rather talk to you about it than to anyone, even my own
father. I do not know whether that is just right, but you do not
mind my asking you, do you?"

"It is my wish to help you in every way that I can," was the gentle
response.

"I will tell you what I have been thinking," said Helen. "I have
been so unhappy in the last three days that I have done nothing at
all; but it seemed to me somehow that it must be wrong of me to let
go of myself in that way--as if I had no right to pamper myself and
indulge my own feelings. It was not that I wished to forget what
wrong things I have done, or keep from suffering because of them;
yet it seemed to me that the fact that I was wretched and frightened
was no excuse for my doing no good for the rest of my life. When I
have thought about my duty before, it has always been my
school-girl's task of studying and practicing music, but that is not
at all what I want now, for I cannot bear to think of such things
while the memory of Arthur is in my mind. I need something that is
not for myself, Mr. Howard, and I find myself thinking that it
should be something that I do not like to do."

Helen paused for a moment, gazing at the other anxiously; and then
she went on: "You must know that what is really behind what I am
saying is what you said that evening in the arbor, about the kind of
woman I ought to be because God has made me beautiful. My heart is
full of a great hunger to be set right, and to get a clearer sight
of the things that are truly good in life. I want you to talk to me
about your own ideals, and what you do to keep your life deep and
true; and then to tell me what you would do in my place. I promise
you that no matter how hard it may be I shall feel that just what
you tell me to do is my duty, and at least I shall never be happy
again until I have done it. Do you understand how I feel, Mr.
Howard?"

"Yes," the man answered, in a quiet voice, "I understand you
perfectly." And then as he paused, watching the girl from beneath
his dark brows, Helen asked, "You do not mind talking to me about
yourself?"

"When a man lives all alone and as self-centered as I," the other
replied, smiling, "it is fatally easy for him to do that; he may
blend himself with his ideals in such a curious way that he never
talks about anything else. But if you will excuse that, I will tell
you what I can."

"Tell me why it is that you live so much alone," said the girl. "Is
it that you do not care for friends?"

"It is very difficult for a man who feels about life as I do to find
many friends," he responded. "If one strives to dwell in deep
things, and is very keen and earnest about it, he is apt to find
very little to help him outside of himself; perhaps it is because I
have met very few persons in my life, but it has not happened to me
to find anyone who thinks about it as I do, or who cares to live it
with my strenuousness. I have met musicians, some who labored very
hard at their art, but none who felt it a duty to labor with their
own souls, to make them beautiful and strong; and I have met
literary men and scholars, but they were all interested in books,
and were willing to be learned, and to classify and plod; I have
never found one who was swift and eager, and full of high impatience
for what is real and the best. There should come times to a man, I
think, when he feels that books are an impertinence, when he knows
that he has only the long-delayed battle with his own heart to
fight, and the prize of its joy to win. When such moods come upon
him he sees that he has to live his life upon his knees, and it is
rarely indeed that he knows of anyone who can follow him and share
in his labor. So it is that I have had to live all my life by
myself, Miss Davis."

"You have always done that?" Helen asked, as he stopped.

"Yes," he answered, "or for very many years. I have a little house
on the wildest of lakes up in the mountains, wyhere I play the
hermit in the summer, and where I should have been now if it had not
been that I yielded to your aunt's invitation. When I spoke of
having no friends I forgot the things of Nature, which really do
sympathize with an artist's life; I find that they never fail to
become full of meaning whenever my own spirit shakes off its bonds.
It has always been a belief of mine that there is nothing that
Nature makes that is quite so dull and unfeeling as man,--with the
exception of children and lovers, I had much rather play my violin
for the flowers and the trees."

"You like to play it out of doors?" Helen asked, with a sudden
smile.

"Yes," laughed the other, "that is one of my privileges as a hermit.
It seems quite natural to the wild things, for they have all a music
of their own, a wonderful, silent music that the best musicians
cannot catch; do you not believe that, Miss Davis?"

"Yes," Helen said, and sat gazing at her companion silently for a
minute. "I should think a life of such effort would be very hard,"
she said finally. "Do you not ever fail?"

"I do not do much else," he replied with a sad smile, "and get up
and stumble on. The mastership of one's heart is the ideal, you
know; and after all one's own life cannot be anything but struggle
and failure, for the power he is trying to conquer is infinite. When
I find my life very hard I do not complain, but know that the reason
for it is that I have chosen to have it real, and that the essence
of the soul is its effort. I think that is a very important thing to
feel about life, Miss Davis."

"That is why I do not wish to be idle," said Helen.

"It is just because people do not know this fact about the soul,"
the other continued, "and are not willing to dare and suffer, and
overcome dullness, and keep their spiritual faculties free, that
they sink down as they grow older, and become what they call
practical, and talk very wisely about experience. It is only when
God sends into the world a man of genius that no mountains of earth
can crush, and who keeps his faith and sweetness all through his
life that we learn the baseness of the thought that experience
necessarily brings cynicism and selfishness. There is to me in all
this world nothing more hateful than this disillusioned worldliness,
and nothing makes me angrier than to see it taking the name of
wisdom. If I were a man with an art, there is nothing, I think, that
I should feel more called to make war upon; it is a very blow in the
face of God. Nothing makes me sadder than to see the life that such
people live,--to see for instance how pathetic are the things they
call their entertainments; and when one knows himself that life is a
magic potion, to be drank with rapture and awe,--that every instance
of it ought to be a hymn of rejoicing, and the whole of it rich and
full of power, like some majestic symphony. I often find myself
wishing that there were some way of saving the time that people
spend in their pleasures;

    "'Life piled on life
  Were all too little, and of one to me
  Little remains.'

As I kneel before God's altar of the heart I know that if I had
infinite time and infinite energy there would be beauty and joy
still to seek, and so as I look about me in the world and see all
the sin and misery that is in it, it is my comfort to know that the
reason for it is that men are still living the lives of the animals,
and have not even dreamed of the life that belongs to them as men.
That is something about which I feel very strongly myself,--that is
part of my duty as a man who seeks worship and rightness to mark
that difference in my own life quite plainly."

Mr. Howard paused for a moment, and Helen said very earnestly, "I
wish that you would tell me about that."

"I consider it my duty," the other replied, "to keep all the
external circumstances of my life as simple and as humble as I
should have to if I were quite poor. If I were not physically
unable, I should feel that I ought to do for my own self all that I
needed to have done, for I think that if it is necessary that others
should be degraded to menial service in order that my soul might be
beautiful and true, then life is bad at the heart of it, and I want
none of its truth and beauty. I do not have to look into my heart
very long, Miss Davis, to discover that what I am seeking in life is
something that no millions of money can buy me; and when I am face
to face with the sternness of what I call that spiritual fact, I see
that fine houses and all the rest are a foolish kind of toy, and
wonder that any man should think that he can please me by giving the
labor of his soul to making them. It is much the same thing as I
feel, for instance, when I go to hear a master of music, and find
that he has spent his hours in torturing himself and his fingers in
order to give me an acrobatic exhibition, when all the time what I
wish him to do, and what his genius gave him power to do, was to
find the magic word that should set free the slumbering demon of my
soul. So I think that a man who wishes to grow by sympathy and
worship should do without wealth, if only because it is so trivial;
but of course I have left unmentioned what is the great reason for a
self-denying life, the reason that lies at the heart of the matter,
and that includes all the others in it,--that he who lives by prayer
and joy makes all men richer, but he who takes more than his bare
necessity of the wealth of the body must know that he robs his
brother when he does it. The things of the soul are everywhere, but
wealth stands for the toil and suffering of human beings, and
thousands must starve and die so that one rich man may live at ease.
That is no fine rhetoric that I am indulging in, but a very deep and
earnest conviction of my soul; first of all facts of morality stands
the law that the life of man is labor, and that he who chooses to
live otherwise is a dastard. He may chase the phantom of happiness
all his days and not find it, and yet never guess the reason,--that
joy is a melody of the heart, and that he is playing upon an
instrument that is out of tune. Few people choose to think of that
at all, but I cannot afford ever to forget it, for my task is to
live the artist's life, to dwell close to the heart of things; it is
something that I simply cannot understand how any man who pretends
to do that can know of the suffering and starving that is in the
world, and can feel that he who has God's temple of the soul for his
dwelling, has right to more of the pleasures of earth than the
plainest food and shelter and what tools of his art he requires. If
it is otherwise it can only be because he is no artist at all, no
lover of life, but only a tradesman under another name, using God's
high gift to get for himself what he can, and thinking of his
sympathy and feeling as things that he puts on when he goes to work,
and when he is sure that they will cost him no trouble."

Mr. Howard had been speaking very slowly, and in a deep and earnest
voice; he paused for a moment, and then added with a slight smile,
"I have been answering your question without thinking about it, Miss
Davis, for I have told you all that there is to tell about my life."

Helen did not answer, but sat for a long time gazing at him and
thinking very deeply; then she said to him, her voice shaking
slightly: "You have answered only half of my question, Mr. Howard; I
want you to tell me what a woman can do to bring those high things
into her life--to keep her soul humble and strong. I do not think
that I have your courage and self-reliance."

The man's voice dropped lower as he answered her, "Suppose that you
were to find this friend of yours that knows you so well, and loves
you so truly; do you not think that there might be a chance for you
to win this prize of life that I speak of?" Helen did not reply, but
sat with her eyes still fixed upon the other's countenance; as he
went on, his deep, musical voice held them there by a spell.

"Miss Davis," he said, "a man does not live very long in the kingdom
of the soul before there comes to be one thing that he loves more
than anything else that life can offer; that thing is love. For love
is the great gateway into the spiritual life, the stage of life's
journey when human beings are unselfish and true to their hearts, if
ever the power of unselfishness and truth lies in them. As for man,
he has many battles to fight and much of himself to kill before the
great prizes of the soul can be his--but the true woman has but one
glory and one duty in life, and sacredness and beauty are hers by
the free gift of God. If she be a true woman, when her one great
passion takes its hold upon her it carries all her being with it,
and she gives herself and all that she has. Because I believe in
unselfishness and know that love is the essence of things, I find in
all the world nothing more beautiful than that, and think that she
has no other task in life, except to see that the self which she
gives is her best and Inghest, and to hold to the thought of the
sacredness of what she is doing. For love is the soul's great act of
worship, and the heart's great awakening to life. If the man be
selfish and a seeker of pleasure, what I say of love and woman is
not for him; but if he be one who seeks to worship, to rouse the
soul within him to its vision of the beauty and preciousness of
life, then he must know that this is the great chance that Nature
gives him, that no effort of his own will ever carry him so far
towards what he seeks. The woman who gives herself to him he takes
for his own with awe and trembling, knowing that the glory which he
reads in her eyes is the very presence of the spirit of life; and
because she stands for this precious thing to him he seeks her love
more than anything else upon earth, feeling that if he has it he has
everything, and if he has it not, he has nothing. He cherishes the
woman as before he cherished what was best in his own soul; he
chooses all fair and noble actions that may bring him still more of
her love; all else that life has for him he lays as an offering at
the shrine of her heart, all his joy and all his care, and asks but
love in return; and because the giving of love is the woman's joy
and the perfectness of her sacrifice, her glory, they come to forget
themselves in each other's being, and to live their lives in each
other's hearts. The joy that each cares for is no longer his own
joy, but the other's; and so they come to stand for the sacredness
of God to each other, and for perpetual inspiration. By and by,
perhaps, from long dwelling out of themselves and feeding their
hearts upon things spiritual, they learn the deep and mystic
religion of love, that is the last lesson life has to teach; it is
given to no man to know what is the source of this mysterious being
of ours, but men who come near to it find it so glorious that they
die for it in joy; and the least glimpse of it gives a man quite a
new feeling about a human heart. So at last it happens that the
lovers read a fearful wonder in each other's eyes, and give each
other royal greeting, no longer for what they are, but for that
which they would like to be. They come to worship together as they
could never have worshiped apart; and always that which they worship
and that in which they dwell, is what all existence is seeking with
so much pain, the sacred presence of wonder that some call Truth,
and some Beauty,--but all Love. When you ask me how unselfishness is
to be made yours in life, that is the answer which I give you."

Mr. Howard's voice had dropped very low; as he stopped Helen was
trembling within herself. She was drinking still more from the
bottomless cup of her humiliation and remorse, for she was still
haunted by the specter of what she had done. The man went on after
an interval of silence.

"I think there is no one," he said, "whom these things touch more
than the man who would live the life of art that I have talked of
before; for the artist seeks experience above all things, seeks it
not only for himself but for his race. And it must come from his own
heart; no one can drive him to his task. All artists tell that the
great source of their power is love; and the wisest of them makes of
his love an art-work, as he makes an art-work of his life. He counts
his power of loving most sacred of all his powers, and guards it
from harm as he guards his life itself; he gives all his soul to the
dreaming of that dream, and lays all his prayer before it; and when
he meets with the maiden who will honor such effort, he forgets
everything else in his life, and gives her all his heart, and
studies to 'worship her by years of noble deeds.' For a woman who
loves love, the heart of such a man is a lifetime's treasure; for
his passion is of the soul, and does not die; and all that he has
done has been really but a training of himself for that great
consecration. If he be a true artist, all his days have been spent
in learning to wrestle with himself, to rouse himself and master his
own heart; until at last his very being has become a prayer, and his
soul like a great storm of wind that sweeps everything away in its
arms. Perhaps that hunger has possessed him so that he never even
wakens in the dead of night without finding it with him in all its
strength; it rouses him in the morning with a song, and when
midnight comes and he is weary, it is a benediction and a hand upon
his brow. All the time, because he has a man's heart and knows of
his life's great glory, his longing turns to a dream of love, to a
vision of the flying perfect for which all his life is a search.
There is a maiden who dwells in all the music that he hears, and who
calls to him in the sunrise, and flings wide the flowers upon the
meadows; she treads before him on the moonlit waters and strews them
with showers of fire. If his soul be only strong enough, perhaps he
waits long years for that perfect woman, that woman who loves not
herself, but loves love; and all the time the yearning of his heart
is growing, so that those who gaze at him wonder why his eyes are
dark and sunken. He knows that his heart is a treasure-house which
he himself cannot explore, and that in all the world he seeks
nothing but some woman before whom he might fling wide its doors."

Helen had been leaning on the table, holding her hands in front of
her; towards the end they were trembling so much that she took them
away and clasped them in her lap. When he ceased her eyes were
lowered; she could not see how his were fixed upon her, but she knew
that her bosom was heaving painfully, and that there were hot tears
upon her cheeks. He added slowly: "I have told you all that I think
about life, my dear friend, and all that I think about love; so I
think I have told you all that I know." And Helen lifted her eyes to
his and gazed at him through her tears.

"You tell _me_ of such things?" she asked. "You give such advice to
_me_!"

"Yes," said the other, gently, "why not to you?"

"Mr. Howard," Helen answered, "do you not know what I have done, and
how I must feel while I listen to you? It is good that I should hear
such things, because I ought to suffer; but when I asked you for
your advice I wished for something hard and stern to do, before I
dared ever think of love, or feel myself right again."

Mr. Howard sat watching her for a moment in silence, and then he
answered gently, "I do not think, my dear friend, that it is our
duty as struggling mortals to feel ourselves right at all; I am not
even sure that we ought to care about our rightness in the least.
For God has put high and beautiful things in the world, things that
call for all our attention; and I am sure that we are never so close
to rightness as when we give all our devotion to them and cease
quite utterly to think about ourselves. And besides that, the love
that I speak of is not easy to give, Miss Davis. It is easy to give
up one's self in the first glow of feeling; but to forget one's self
entirely, and one's comfort and happiness in all the little things
of life; to consecrate one's self and all that one has to a lifetime
of patience and self-abnegation; and to seek no reward and ask for
no happiness but love,--do you not think that such things would cost
one pain and bring a good conscience at last?"

Helen's voice was very low as she answered, "Perhaps, at last." Then
she sat very still, and finally raised her deep, earnest eyes and
leaned forward and gazed straight into her companion's. "Mr.
Howard," she said, "you must know that YOU are my conscience; and it
is the memory of your words that causes me all my suffering. And now
tell me one thing; suppose I were to say to you that I could beg
upon my knees for a chance to earn such a life as that; and suppose
I should ever come really to love someone, and should give up
everything to win such a treasure, do you think that I could clear
my soul from what I have done, and win rightness for mine? Do you
think that you--that YOU could ever forget that I was the woman who
had wished to sell her love for money?"

Mr. Howard answered softly, "Yes, I think so."

"But are you sure of it?" Helen asked; and when she had received the
same reply she drew a long breath, and a wonderful expression of
relief came upon her face; all her being seemed to rise,--as if all
in an instant she had flung away the burden of shame and fear that
had been crushing her soul. She sat gazing at the other with a
strange look in her eyes, and then she sank down and buried her head
in her arms upon the table.

And fully a minute passed thus without a sound. Helen was just
lifting her head again, and Mr. Howard was about to speak, when an
unexpected interruption caused him to stop. The front door was
opened, and as Helen turned with a start the servant came and stood
in the doorway.

"What is it, Elizabeth?" Helen asked in a faint voice.

"I have just been to the post office," the woman answered; "here is
a letter for you."

"Very well," Helen answered; "give it to me."

And she took it and put it on the table in front of her. Then she
waited until the servant was gone, and in the meantime, half
mechanically, turned her eyes upon the envelope. Suddenly the man
saw her give a violent start and turn very pale; she snatched up the
letter and sprang to her feet, and stood supporting herself by the
chair, her hand shaking, and her breath coming in gasps.

"What is it?" Mr. Howard cried.

Helen's voice was hoarse and choking as she answered him: "It is
from Arthur!" As he started and half rose from his chair the girl
tore open the letter and unfolded the contents, glancing at it once
very swiftly, her eyes flying from line to line; the next instant
she let it fall to the floor with a cry and clutched with her hands
at her bosom. She tried to speak, but she was choking with her
emotion; only her companion saw that her face was transfigured with
delight; and then suddenly she sank down upon the sofa beside her,
her form shaken with hysterical laughter and sobbing.

Mr. Howard had risen from his chair in wonder; but before he could
take a step toward her he heard someone in the hall, and Mr. Davis
rushed into the room. "Helen, Helen!" he exclaimed, "what is the
matter?" and sank down upon his knees beside her; the girl raised
her head and then flung herself into his arms, exclaining
incoherently: "Oh, Daddy, I am free! Oh, oh--can you believe it--I
am free!"

Long after her first ecstasy had passed Helen still lay with her
head buried in her father's bosom, trembling and weeping and
repeating half as if in a dream that last wonderful word, "Free!"
Meanwhile Mr. Davis had bent down and picked up the paper to glance
over it.

Most certainly Arthur would have wondered had he seen the effect of
that letter upon Helen; for he wrote to her with bitter scorn, and
told her that he had torn his love for her from his heart, and made
himself master of his own life again. He bid her go on in the course
she had chosen, for a day or two had been enough for him to find the
end of her power over him, and of his care for her; and he added
that he wrote to her only that she might not please herself with the
thought of having wrecked him, and that he was going far away to
begin his life again.

The words brought many emotions to Mr. Davis, and suggested many
doubts; but to Helen they brought but one thought. She still clung
to her father, sobbing like a child and muttering the one word
"Free!" When at last the fit had vented itself and she looked up
again, she seemed to Mr. Howard more like a girl than she ever had
before; and she wiped away her tears laughingly, and smoothed back
her hair, and was wonderfully beautiful in her emotion. She
introduced Mr. Howard to her father, and begged him to excuse her
for her lack of self-control. "I could not help it," she said, "for
oh, I am so happy--so happy!" And she leaned her head upon her
father's shoulder again and gazed up into his face. "Daddy dear,"
she said, "and are you not happy too?"

"My dear," Mr Davis protested, "of course I am glad to hear that
Arthur is himself again. But that is not finding him, and I fear--"

"Oh, oh, please don't!" Helen cried, the frightened look coming back
upon her face in a flash. "Oh please do not tell me that--no, no! Do
let me be happy just a little while--think of it, how wretched I
have been! And now to know he is safe! Oh, please, Daddy!" And the
tears had welled up in Helen's eyes again. She turned quickly to Mr.
Howard, her voice trembling. "Tell me that I may be happy," she
exclaimed. "You know all about it, Mr. Howard. Is it not right that
I should be happy just a little?"

As her friend answered her gently that he thought it was, she sat
looking at him for a moment, and then the cloud passed over. She
brushed away her tears, and put her arms about her father again.

"I cannot help it," she went on, quickly, "I must be happy whether I
want to or not! You must not mind anything I do! For oh, think what
it means to have been so wretched, so crushed and so frightened! I
thought that all my life was to be like that, that I could never
sing again, because Arthur was ruined. Nobody will ever know how I
felt,--how many tears I shed; and now think what it means to be
free--to be free,--oh, free! And to be able to be good once more! I
should go mad if I thought about it!"

Helen had risen as she spoke, and she spread out her arms and flung
back her head and drank in a deep breath of joy. She began singing,
half to herself; and then as that brought a sudden idea into her
mind she ran to the window and shut it quickly. "I will sing you my
hymn!" she laughed, "_that_ is the way to be happy!"

And she went to the piano; in a minute more she had begun the chorus
she had sung to Arthur, "Hail thee Joy, from Heaven descending!" The
flood of emotion that was pent up within her poured itself out in
the wild torrent of music, and Helen seemed happy enough to make up
for all the weeks of suffering. As she swept herself on she proved
what she had said,--that she would go mad if she thought much about
her release; and Mr. Howard and her father sat gazing at her in
wonder. When she stopped she was quite exhausted and quite dazed,
and came and buried her head in her father's arms, and sat waiting
until the heaving of her bosom had subsided, and she was calm once
more,--in the meantime murmuring faintly to herself again and again
that she was happy and that she was free.

When she looked up and brushed away her tangled hair again, perhaps
she thought that her conduct was not very conventional, for she
begged Mr. Howard's pardon once more, promising to be more orderly
by and by. Then she added, laughing, "It is good that you should see
me happy, though, because I have always troubled you with my
egotisms before." She went on talking merrily, until suddenly she
sprang up and said, "I shall have to sing again if I do not run
away, so I am going upstairs to make myself look respectable!" And
with that she danced out of the room, waking the echoes of the house
with her caroling:

  "Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!"

  Lus-tig im Leid, sing'ich von Lieb-e!






CHAPTER XIII





  "Some one whom I can court
    With no great change of manner,
  Still holding reason's fort,
    Tho waving fancy's banner."

Several weeks had passed since Helen had received the letter from
Arthur, the girl having in the meantime settled quietly down at
Oakdale She had seen few of her friends excepting Mr. Howard, who
had come out often from the city.

She was expecting a visit from him one bright afternoon, and was
standing by one of the pillars of the vine-covered porch, gazing up
at the blue sky above her and waiting to hear the whistle of the
train. When she saw her friend from the distance she waved her hand
to him and went to meet him, laughing, "I am going to take you out
to see my stream and my bobolink to-day. You have not seen our
country yet, you know."

The girl seemed to Mr. Howard more beautiful that afternoon than he
had ever known her before, for she was dressed all in white and
there was the old spring in her step, and the old joy in her heart.
When they had passed out of the village, she found the sky so very
blue, and the clouds so very white, and the woods and meadows so
very green, that she was radiantly happy and feared that she would
have to sing. And she laughed:

  "Away, away from men and towns,
  To the wild wood and the downs!"

And then interrupted herself to say, "You must not care, Mr. Howard,
if I chatter away and do all the talking. It has been a long time
since I have paid a visit to my friends out here, and they will all
be here to welcome me."

Even as Helen spoke she looked up, and there was the bobolink flying
over her head and pouring out his song; also the merry breeze was
dancing over the meadows, and everything about her was in motion.

"Do you know," she told her companion, "I think most of the
happiness of my life has been out in these fields; I don't know what
made me so fond of the country, but even when I was a very little
thing, whenever I learned a new song I would come out here and sing
it. Those were times when I had nothing to do but be happy, you
know, and I never thought about anything else. It has always been so
easy for me to be happy, I don't know why. There is a fountain of
joy in my heart that wells up whether I want it to or not, so that I
can always be as merry as I choose. I am afraid that is very
selfish, isn't it, Mr. Howard? I am trying to be right now, you
know."

"You may consider you are being merry for my sake at present," said
the man with a laugh. "It is not always so easy for me to be
joyful."

"Very well, then," smiled Helen; "I only wish that you had brought
your violin along. For you see I always think of these things of
Nature with music; when I was little they were all creatures that
danced with me. These winds that are so lively were funny little
fairy-men, and you could see all the flowers shake as they swept
over them; whenever I heard any music that was quick and bright I
always used to fancy that some of them had hold of my hands and were
teaching me to run. I never thought about asking why, but I used to
find that very exciting. And then there was my streamlet--he's just
ahead here past the bushes--and I used to like him best of all. For
he was a very beautiful youth, with a crown of flowers upon his
head; there was a wonderful light in his eyes, and his voice was
very strong and clear, and his step very swift, so it was quite
wonderful when you danced with him. For he was the lord of all the
rest, and everything around you got into motion then; there was
never any stopping, for you know the streamlet always goes faster
and faster, and gets more and more joyous, until you cannot bear it
any more and have to give up. We shall have to play the Kreutzer
Sonata some time, Mr. Howard.'

"I was thinking of that," said the other, smiling.

"I think it would be interesting to know what people imagine when
they listen to music," went on Helen. "I have all sorts of queer
fancies for myself; whenever it gets too exciting there is always
one last resource, you can fly away to the top of the nearest
mountain. I don't know just why that is, but perhaps it's because
you can see so much from there, or because there are so many winds;
anyway, there is a dance--a wonderfully thrilling thing, if only the
composer knows how to manage it. There is someone who dances with
me--I never saw his face, but he's always there; and everything
around you is flying fast, and there comes surge after surge of the
music and sweeps you on,--perhaps some of those wild runs on the
violins that are just as if the wind took you up in its arms and
whirled you away in the air! That is a most tremendous experience
when it happens, because then you go quite beside yourself and you
see that all the world is alive and full of power; the great things
of the forest begin to stir too, the trees and the strange shapes in
the clouds, and all the world is suddenly gone mad with motion; and
so by the time you come to the last chords your hands are clenched
and you can hardly breathe, and you feel that all your soul is
throbbing!"

Helen was getting quite excited then, just over her own enthusiasm;
perhaps it was because the wind was blowing about her. "Is that the
way music does with you?" she laughed, as she stopped.

"Sometimes," said Mr. Howard, smiling in turn; "but then again while
all my soul is throbbing I feel my neighbor reaching to put on her
wraps, and that brings me down from the mountains so quickly that it
is painful; afterwards you go outside among the cabs and cable-cars,
and make sad discoveries about life."

"You are a pessimist," said the girl.

"Possibly," responded the other, "but try to keep your fountain of
joy a while, Miss Davis. There are disagreeable things in life to be
done, and some suffering to be borne, and sometimes the fountain
dries up very quickly indeed."

Helen was much more ready to look serious than she would have been a
month before; she asked in a different tone, "You think that must
always happen?"

"Not quite always," was the reply; "there are a few who manage to
keep it, but it means a great deal of effort. Perhaps you never took
your own happiness so seriously," he added with a smile.

"No," said Helen, "I never made much effort that I know of."

"Some day perhaps you will have to," replied the other, "and then
you will think of the creatures of nature as I do, not simply as
rejoicing, but as fighting the same battle and daring the same pain
as you."

The girl thought for a moment, and then asked: "Do you really
believe that as a fact?"

"I believe something," was the answer, "that makes me think when I
go among men and see their dullness, that Nature is flinging wide
her glory in helpless appeal to them; and that it is a dreadful
accident that they have no eyes and she no voice." He paused for a
moment and then added, smiling, "It would take metaphysics to
explain that; and meanwhile we were talking about your precious
fountain of joy."

"I should think," answered Helen, thoughtfully, "that it would be
much better to earn one's happiness."

"Perhaps after you had tried it a while you would not think so,"
replied her companion; "that is the artist's life, you know, and in
practice it is generally a very dreadful life. Real effort is very
hard to make; and there is always a new possibility to lure the
artist, so that his life is always restless and a cruel defeat."

"It is such a life that you have lived, Mr. Howard?" asked Helen,
gazing at him.

"There are compensations," he replied, smiling slightly, "or there
would be no artists. There comes to each one who persists some hour
of victory, some hour when he catches the tide of his being at the
flood, and when he finds himself master of all that his soul
contains, and takes a kind of fierce delight in sweeping himself on
and in breaking through everything that stands in his way. You made
me think of such things by what you said of your joy in music; only
perhaps the artist discovers that not only the streamlets and the
winds have motion and meaning, but that the planets also have a word
for his soul; and his own being comes suddenly to seem to him a
power which it frightens him to know of, and he sees the genius of
life as a spirit with eyes of flame. It lifts him from his feet and
drags him away, and the task of his soul takes the form of something
that he could cry out to escape. He has fought his way into the
depths of being at last, and lie stands alone in all his littleness
on the shore of an ocean whose waves are centuries--and then even
while he is wondering and full of fear, his power begins to die
within him and to go he knows not how; and when he looks at himself
again he is like a man who has had a dream, and wakened with only
the trembling left; except that he knows it was no dream but a fiery
reality, and that the memory of it will cast a shadow over all the
rest of his days and make them seem trivial and meaningless. No one
knows how many years he may spend in seeking and never find that
lost glory again."