Thou would'st be happy,   Endlessly happy,
  Or endlessly wretched.
Helen was quite powerless to do anything whatever after that last piece of misfortune; it seemed as if she could have remained just where she was for hours, shuddering at the sight of what was happening, yet utterly helpless before it. The world was taking a very serious aspect indeed to the bright and laughing girl, who had thought of it as the home of birds and flowers; yet she knew not what to make of the change, or how she was to blame for it, and she could only sit still and tremble. She was in the same position and the same state of mind when her aunt entered the room some minutes later.
Mrs. Roberts stood watching her silently, and then as Helen turned her gaze of pleading misery upon her, she came forward and sat down in a chair by the bedside, and fixed her keen eyes upon the girl.
“Oh, Aunt Polly!” cried Helen; “what am I to do? I am so wretched!”
“I have just been talking to Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Roberts, with some sternness, “and she's been telling you about Arthur—is that what is the matter with you, Helen?”
“Yes,” was the trembling response, “what can I do?”
“Tell me, Helen, in the first place,” demanded the other. “When you saw Arthur that day in the woods, what did you do? Did you make him any promises?”
“No, Auntie.”
“Did you hold out any hopes to him? Did you say anything to him at all about love?”
“I—I told him it was impossible,” said Helen, eagerly, clutching at that little crumb of comfort.
“Then in Heaven's name, child,” cried the other in amazement, “what is the matter with you? If Arthur chooses to carry on in this fashion, why in the world should you punish yourself in this horrible way? What is the matter with you, Helen? Are you responsible to him for your marriage? I don't know which is the most absurd, the boy's behavior, or your worrying about it.”
“But, Auntie,” stammered the girl, “he is so ill—he might die!”
“Die, bosh!” exclaimed Mrs. Roberts; “he frightened Elizabeth by his ravings; it is the most absurd nonsense,—he a penniless school-teacher, and the Lord only knows what besides! I only wish I'd been there to talk to him, for I don't think he'd have frightened me! What in the world do you suppose he wants, anyway? Is he mad enough to expect you to marry him?”
“I don't know, Aunt Polly,” said Helen, weakly.
“I'd never have believed that Arthur could be capable of anything so preposterous as this behavior,” vowed Mrs. Roberts; “and then to come up here and find you wearing yourself to a skeleton about it!”
“It isn't only that, Auntie,” protested Helen, “there is so much else; I am miserable!”
“Yes,” said the other, grimly; “I see it as well as you, and there's just about as much reason in any of it as in the matter of Arthur.” Then Mrs. Roberts moved her chair nearer, and after gazing at Helen for a moment, began again. “I've been meaning to say something to you, and it might just as well be said now. For all this matter is coming to a climax, Helen; it can't go on this way very much longer, for you'll kill yourself. It's got to be settled one way or the other, once and for all.” And Mrs. Roberts stopped and took a deep breath, preparing for one more struggle; Helen still gazed at her helplessly.
“I'm not going to say anything more about Arthur,” declared the woman; “if you choose to torment yourself about such absurdities, I can't help it. Arthur's behavior is not the least your fault, and you know it; but all the other trouble is your fault, and there's nobody else to blame. For the question is just as simple as the day, Helen, and you must see it and decide it; you've got to choose between one of two things, either to marry Mr. Harrison or to give him up; and there's no excuse for your hesitating and tormenting yourself one day longer.”
Then the indomitable woman set to work at her old task of conjuring up before the girl's eyes all the allurements that had so often made her heart throb; she, pictured Fairview and all its luxuries, and the admiration and power that must be hers when she was mistress of it; and she mentioned every other source of pleasure that she knew would stir Helen's eager thirst. After having hammered away at that theme until she saw signs of the effect she desired, she turned to the other side of the picture.
“Helen,” she demanded, “is it really possible for you to think of giving up these things and going back to live in that miserable little house at Oakdale? Can you not see that you would be simply burying yourself alive? You might just as well be as ugly as those horrible Nelson girls across the way. Helen, you know you belong to a different station in life than those people! You know you have a right to some of the beautiful things in the world, and you know that after this vision of everything perfect that you have seen, you can never possibly be happy in your ignorant girlish way again. You have promised Mr. Harrison to marry him, and made him go to all the expense that he has; and you've told everybody you know, and all the world is talking about your triumph; and you've had Mr. Roberts go to all the trouble he has about your trousseau,—surely, Helen, you cannot dream of changing your mind and giving all this up. It is ridiculous to talk about it.”
“I don't want to give it up,” protested the girl, moaning, “but, oh, I can't—”
“I know!” exclaimed the other. “I've heard all that a thousand times. Don't you see, Helen, that you've simply got to marry him! There is no other possibility to think of, and all of your weakness is that you don't perceive that fact, and make up your mind to it. Just see how absurd you are, to make yourself ill in this way.”
“But I can't help it, Auntie, indeed I can't!”
“You could help it if you wanted to,” vowed the other. “I am quite disgusted with you. I have told you a thousand times that this is all an imaginary terror that you are conjuring up for yourself, to ruin your health and happiness. When you have married him you will see that it's just as I tell you, and you'll laugh at yourself for feeling as you did.”
“But it's in the meantime, Aunt Polly—it's having to think about it that frightens me.”
“Well, let me tell you one thing,” said Mrs. Roberts; “if I found that I couldn't cure myself of such weakness as this, sooner than let it ruin my life and make everyone about me wretched, I'd settle the matter right now and forever; I'd marry him within a week, Helen!” And the resolute little woman clenched her hands grimly. “Yes, I would,” she exclaimed, “and if I found I hadn't strength enough to hold my resolution, I'd marry him to-morrow, and there'd be an end to it!”
“You don't realize, Helen, how you treat Mr. Harrison,” she went on, as the girl shuddered; “and how patient he is. You'd not find many men like him in that respect, my dear. For he's madly in love with you, and you treat him as coldly as if he were a stranger. I can see that, for I watch you, and I can see how it offends him. You have promised to be his wife, Helen, and yet you behave in this ridiculous way. You are making yourself ill, and you look years older every day, yet you make not the least attempt to conquer yourself.”
So she went on, and Helen began to feel more and more that she was doing a very great wrong indeed. Mrs. Roberts' sharp questioning finally drew from her the story of her reception of Mr. Harrison's one kiss, and Helen was made to seem quite ridiculous and even rude in her own eyes; her aunt lectured her with such unaccustomed sternness that she was completely frightened, and came to look upon her action as the cause of all the rest of her misery.
“It's precisely on that account that you still regard him as a stranger,” Mrs. Roberts vowed; “of course he makes no more advances, and you might go on forever in that way.” Helen promised that the next time she was alone with Mr. Harrison she would apologize for her rudeness, and treat him in a different manner.
“I wish,” Mrs. Roberts went on, “that I could only make you see as plainly as I see, Helen, how very absurd your conduct is. Day by day you are filling your mind with the thought of the triumph that is to be yours, so that it takes hold of you and becomes all your life to you; and all the time you know that to possess it there is one thing which you have got to do. And instead of realizing the fact and reconciling yourself to it, you sit down and torment yourself as if you were a creature without reason or will. Can you not see that you must be wretched?”
“Yes, I see,” said Helen, weakly.
“You see it, but you make no effort to do anything else! You make me almost give you up in despair. You will not see that this weakness has only to be conquered once, and that then your life can be happy!”
“But, Auntie, dear,” exclaimed Helen, “it is so hard!”
“Anything in life would be hard for a person who had no more resolution than you,” responded the other. “Because you know nothing about the world, you fancy you are doing something very unusual and dreadful; but I assure you it's what every girl has to do when she marries in society. And there's no one of them but would laugh at your behavior; you just give Mr. Harrison up, and see how long it would be before somebody else would take him! Oh, child, how I wish I could give you a little of my energy; you would go to the life that is before you in a very different way, I promise you! For really the only way that you can have any happiness in the world is to be strong and take it, and if you once had a purpose and some determination you would feel like a different person. Make up your mind what you wish to do, Helen, and go and do it, and take hold of yourself and master yourself, and show what you are made of!”
Aunt Polly was quite sublime as she delivered that little exordium; and to the girl, anxious as she was for her old strength and happiness, the words were like music. They made her blood flow again, and there was a light in her eyes.
“Oh, Auntie,” she said, “I'll try to.”
“Try!” echoed the other, “what comes of all your trying? You have been reveling for a week in visions of what is to be yours; and that ought surely to have been enough time for you to make up your mind; and yet every time that I find you alone, all your resolution is gone; you simply have no strength, Helen!”
“Oh, I will have it!” cried the girl; “I don't mean to do this way any more; I never saw it so plainly.”
“You see it now, because I'm talking to you, and you always do see it then. But I should think the very terror of what you have suffered would serve as a motive, and make you quite desperate. Can you not see that your very safety depends upon your taking this resolution and keeping it, and not letting go of it, no matter what happens? From what I've seen of you, Helen, I know that if you do not summon all your energies together, and fling aside every purpose but this, and act upon it now, while you feel it so keenly, you will surely fail. For anybody can withstand a temptation for a while, when his mind is made up; all the trouble is in keeping it made up for a long time. I tell you if I found I was losing, sooner than surrender I would do anything, absolutely anything!”
Mrs. Roberts had many more words of that heroic kind; she was a vigorous little body, and she was quite on fire with enthusiasm just then, and with zeal for the consummation of the great triumph. Perhaps there is no occupation of men quite without its poetry, and even a society leader may attain to the sublime in her devotion to life as she sees it. Besides that the over-zealous woman was exalted to eloquence just then by a feeling that she was nearer her goal than ever before, and that she had only to spur Helen on and keep her in her present glow to clinch the matter; for the girl was very much excited indeed, and showed both by what she said and by the change in her behavior that she was determined to have an end to her own wretchedness and to conquer her shrinking from her future husband at any cost. During all the time that she was dressing, her aunt was stirring her resolution with the same appeal, so that Helen felt that she had never seen her course so clearly before, or had so much resolution to follow it. She spread out her arms and drank deep breaths of relief because she was free from her misery, and knew how to keep so; and at the same time, because she still felt tremblings of fear, she clenched her hands in grim earnestness. When she was ready to descend she was flushed and trembling with excitement, and quite full of her resolution. “She won't have to go very far,” Mrs. Roberts mused, “for the man is madly in love with her.”
“I want you to look as beautiful as you can, dear,” she said aloud, by way of changing the subject; “besides Mr. Harrison, there'll be another visitor at lunch to-day.”
“A stranger?” echoed Helen.
“You remember, dear, when I told you of Mr. Howard I spoke of a third person who was coming—Lieutenant Maynard?”
“Oh, yes,” said the girl; “is he here?”
“Just until the late train this evening,” answered the other. “He got his leave as he expected, but of course he didn't want to come while Mr. Howard was so ill.”
Helen remembered with a start having heard someone say that Mr. Howard was better. “Auntie,” she cried, “he won't be at lunch, will he? I don't want to see him.”
“He won't, dear,” was the reply; “the doctor said he could leave his room to-day, but it will be afterwards, when you have gone driving with Mr. Harrison.”
“And will he leave soon?” asked Helen, shuddering; the mention of the invalid's name had instantly brought to her mind the thought of Arthur.
“He will leave to-morrow, I presume; he probably knows he has caused us trouble enough,” answered Mrs. Roberts; and then reading Helen's thought, and seeing a sign upon her face of the old worry, she made haste to lead her down the stairs.
Helen found Mr. Harrison in conversation with a tall, distinguished-looking man in naval uniform, to whom she was introduced by her aunt; the girl saw that the officer admired her, which was only another stimulant to her energies, so that she was at her cleverest during the meal that followed. She accepted the invitation of Mr. Harrison to go with him to Fairview during the afternoon, and after having been in her room all the morning, she was looking forward to the drive with no little pleasure, as also—to the meeting with the architect whom Mr. Harrison said would be there.
It seemed once as if the plan were to be interrupted, and as if her excitement and resolution were to come to naught, for a telegram arrived for Mr. Harrison, and he announced that he was called away to New York upon some business. But as it proved, this was only another circumstance to urge her on in carrying out her defiant resolution, for Mr. Harrison added that he would not have to leave until the evening, and her aunt gazed at the girl significantly, to remind her of how little time there was. Helen felt her heart give a sudden leap, and felt a disagreeable trembling seize upon her; her animation became more feverish yet in consequence.
After the luncheon, when she ran up for her hat and gloves, her aunt followed her, but Helen shook her off with a............