"Dearest Sophie!"
Sophie drew her friend into the room, helped her to unbutton her cloak with trembling hands, took off her bonnet, and seizing her with both hands, she said:
"Well, now let me look at you in broad day-light, you darling; beautiful as usual, wondrously beautiful! But you look pale and haggard, it seems to me. Can I do anything for you? You see I have been at work in the kitchen."
Helen smiled. It was a melancholy smile, which made her dark eyes look still darker.
"I thank you, Sophie! I only wished to refresh myself by seeing you.
Ah! you do not know how I have longed for you!"
Sophie was deeply touched by this unusual expression of Helen's feelings. But she was even more deeply touched by the sad tone of voice in which Helen said she had longed to see her. Such a confession, which the boarder at Miss Bear's institute would have been too proud ever to have made, was still stranger in the betrothed of Prince Waldenberg.
All this passed through Sophie's mind while she held Helen's hands in her own and looked deeper and deeper into her dark eyes.
"Poor Helen!" The words escaped her; she hardly knew what she was saying.
But the low, sympathetic words awakened in Helen's heart all the painful feelings which had kept her from sleeping during the night, so that she scarcely had more than an hour's rest near morning. Pity for herself, such as she had never known before, overcame her, tears filled her eyes, and she threw herself into Sophie's arms, hiding her beautiful pale face on her friend's bosom.
"For Heaven's sake, dearest Helen! what is the matter?" said Sophie, now seriously concerned. "I have never seen you so; I never thought I should see you so; and that now, when I thought your whole life was full of joy and glory!"
"Did you really think so?" asked Helen, raising herself and looking at Sophie fixedly with her large sorrowful eyes.
Sophie cast down her own before this look. She did not wish to say No; and she was too honest to say Yes. But she never hesitated long. Now or never was the moment to tell Helen all she had had on her heart for so long a time.
"Helen!" she said, looking up frankly and calmly with her deep blue eyes; "I cannot feign and will not feign for any one, and least of all for you whom I love dearly. Come, sweetheart, sit down by me on the sofa here, and let us talk like two sisters; and let us be sisters, if never again, at least for this hour. If you did not wish me to speak candidly to you, I think you would have hardly come to me, when you have so many brighter and greater friends. Am I right?"
"Go on!" said Helen, as if it were comfort and consolation merely to hear the voice of her friend.
"You ask me," continued Sophie, gathering courage as she spoke, "whether I really thought you were happy. I do not. You do not look like a happy woman. Your beautiful, pale face says No, even if your tongue should say Yes. I have often read in your face--I have read there long, long stories of which your lips did not say a word, and I will tell you what I read. Shall I do it?"
"Go on!" said Helen.
"I read on your brow that your mind is not satisfied with anything except what is great and extraordinary, and even not always with that; and I have read in your wondrously-beautiful eyes that your heart longs for love as much as human heart can wish for it. Thus, there has always been a struggle between your mind and your heart. You wish to rule and to love at the same time, and that cannot be done. Helen! love, true love--and there is no other love--must be humble; it bears all thing's and believes all things; it wants only to be one with the person loved, one in joy and one in sorrow Look, sweetheart! such love has fallen to my share, and therefore I know what I say. Franz and I have but one will: he wants to do what is right, and so do I; and even if our views ever should be apart, our hearts are always united. All joys are doubly great, and all sorrows are diminished by half. I felt that when my dear papa died. What would have become of me if Franz had not been there?"
"I had no one when my father died!" Helen said, sadly.
"I know it, darling; and often, when I thought how lonely you were, and how you did not have a soul to whom you could pour out your grief, I have thrown myself on Franz's bosom, who many a time could not imagine what brought me to him so suddenly and so passionately. You stand alone, even now when you are on the point of being married; and what is a thousand times worse, you are quite sure in your heart that it will always be so--that your husband will never be your friend, your brother, your beloved, before whom your soul lies open and clear, like a crystal-clear mountain lake, into which the sun looks brightly down to the very bottom."
"Never! never!" whispered Helen.
"I knew it," said Sophie, sadly; "but, Helen, if it is bad enough for you to marry the prince without loving him, it is still worse to become his wife while you are cherishing in your heart the image of another man."
Deep blushes flew over Helen's face as Sophie said these words in a firm voice, and at the same time looked at her so gravely and reproachfully with her large blue eyes.
"No, darling; don't be ashamed of having loved him. That is not what I blame you for. He is a man of uncommon attraction, and gifted by nature with all that can charm woman. I do not even blame you for loving him still. Who can cast aside true love so promptly? But, Helen, since it is so, do not marry the prince! You ought not to do it from respect for yourself, from respect for him, if he deserves respect."
"It is too late!" said Helen, hiding her face in her hands.
"Never too late!" exclaimed Sophie, passionately, and showing how deeply her heart was moved. "It is never too late to confess a mistake which must make you and him unspeakably unhappy. Do not misunderstand me, Helen! I do not speak in favor of that man who, if he ever really deserved your love, has long since forfeited all claim to it. I never was a friend of his; his so-called brilliant qualities never attracted me, because they were not founded upon goodness of heart; and, in my eyes, good old Bemperlein stands immeasurably higher than Oswald Stein.
But, because he is not worthy of you, must you therefore marry a man for whom your heart feels nothing, however estimable he may otherwise be? Are there no other men in the world but Oswald and the prince? Oh, Helen! I wish I had the tongue of angels to touch your heart, so that you might humbly bow before the truth, and esteem all the splendor of the world as nothing in comparison with the happiness you would find in being true to yourself!"
Helen shuddered as if really one of the heavenly hosts were speaking to her.
"Oh, you are so good!" she said. "I wish I were like you."
"You can be so, if you but choose."
"But how can I escape? I have pledged my word! I cannot take it back!"
"Speak openly to the prince!" said Sophie, who thought such a remedy quite simple and natural.
"Rather die!" murmured Helen.
At that moment there came a knock at the door. The servant appeared with a note in his hand.
"A special messenger, ma'am, on horseback, with a note from the baroness."
Helen seized the note hastily.
"From mamma!"
She cast a glance at it and trembled.
"What is it, Helen?"
"Mamma has just heard from Grenwitz, that brother has been taken very ill. She must go back immediately!"
"Poor girl!" said Sophie. "How pale and frightened you look! Shall I go with you?"
"No, no!" said Helen. "You stay! I must go alone. Good-by, dearest Sophie! Good-by!"
Helen tore herself from Sophie's arms.
Sophie accompanied her to the carriage. She held her friend's hand firmly in her own, and said: "Let me hear from you, Helen! And, Helen, whatever you do, follow the voice of your warm heart; it is a better counsellor than your cold intellect!"
"I will do so," said Helen, already in the carriage; "you may rely upon it, I will do so. Good-by!"
The servant closed the door; the carriage dashed off. Sophie followed it with her eyes till it had turned the nearest corner, then she went slowly back to the house, her lovely face bent thoughtfully to the ground.
CHAPTER XIII.
In a room in the second story of the Hotel de Russie, Under the Lindens, Berger was closeted that same afternoon with Director Schmenckel. They had had a long interview, and Mr. Schmenckel was just rising to say good-by. Berger rose likewise.
"You know exactly what you have to say?"