I am Merlin     And I am dying,
  “I am Merlin,
    Who follow the Gleam.”
 
Helen stood gazing at the figure in utter consternation for at least half a minute before she could find voice; then she bent forward and called to him wildly—“Arthur!”
It was the other's turn to be startled then, and he staggered backward; as he gazed up at Helen his look showed plainly that he too was half convinced that he was gazing at a phantom of his own mind, and for a long time he stood, pressing his hands to his heart and unable to make a sound or a movement. When finally he broke the silence his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Helen,” he panted, “what in heaven's name are you doing here?”
And then as the girl answered, “This is my home, Arthur,” he gave another start.
“You live here with him?” he gasped.
“With him?” echoed Helen in a low voice. “With whom, Arthur?”
He answered, “With that Mr. Harrison.” A look of amazement crossed Helen's face, tho followed quickly by a gleam of comprehension. She had quite forgotten that Arthur knew nothing about what she had done.
“Arthur,” she said, “I did not marry Mr. Harrison;” then, seeing that he was staring at her in still greater wonder, she went on hastily: “It seems strange to go back to those old days now; but once I meant to tell you all about it, Arthur.” She paused for a moment and then went on slowly: “All the time I was engaged to that man I was wretched; and when I saw you the last time—that dreadful time by the road—it was almost more than I could bear; so I took back my wicked promise of marriage and came to see you and tell you all about it.”
As the girl had been speaking the other had been staring at her with a look upon his face that was indescribable, a look that was more terror than anything else; he had staggered back, he grasped at a tree to support himself. Helen saw the look and stopped, frightened herself.
“What is it, Arthur?” she cried; “what is the matter?”
“You came to see me!” the other gasped hoarsely. “You came to see me—and I—and I was gone!”
“Yes, Arthur,” said Helen; “you had gone the night before, and I could not find you. Then I met this man that I loved, and you wrote that you had torn the thought of me from your heart; and so—-”
Again Helen stopped, for the man had sunk backwards with a cry that made her heart leap in fright. “Arthur!” she exclaimed, taking a step towards him; and he answered her with a moan, stretching out his arms to her. “Great God, Helen, that letter was a lie!”
Helen stopped, rooted to the spot. “A lie?” she whispered faintly.
“Yes, a lie!” cried the other with a sudden burst of emotion, leaping up and starting towards her. “Helen, I have suffered the tortures of hell! I loved you—I love you now!”
The girl sprang back, and the blood rushed to her cheeks. Half instinctively she drew her light dress more tightly about her; and the other saw the motion and stopped, a look of despair crossing his face. The two stood thus for fully a minute, staring at each other wildly; then suddenly Arthur asked: “You love this man whom you have married? You love him?”
The girl answered, “Yes, I love him,” and Arthur's arms dropped, and his head sank forward. There was a look upon his face that tore Helen's heart to see, so that for a moment or two she stood quite dazed with this new terror. Then all at once, however, the old one came back to her thoughts, and with a faint cry she started toward her old friend, stretching out her arms to him and calling to him imploringly.
“Oh, Arthur,” she cried, “have mercy upon me—do not frighten me any more! Arthur, if you only knew what I have suffered, you would pity me, you could not help it! You would not fling this burden of your misery upon me too.”
The man fixed his eyes upon her and for the first time he seemed to become aware of the new Helen, the Helen who had replaced the girl he had known. He read in her ghastly white face some hint of what she had been through, and his own look turned quickly to one of wonder, and even awe. “Helen,” he whispered, “are you ill?”
“No, Arthur,” she responded quickly, full of desperate hope as she saw his change. “Not ill, but oh, so frightened. I have been more wretched than you can ever dream. Can you not help me, Arthur, will you not? I was almost despairing, I thought that my heart would burst. Can you not be unselfish?”
The man gazed at her at least a minute; and when he answered at last, it was in a low, grave voice that was new to her.
“I will do it, Helen,” he said. “What is it?”
The girl came toward him, her voice sinking. “We must not let him hear us, Arthur,” she whispered. Then as she gazed into his face she added pathetically, “Oh, I cannot tell you how I have wished that I might only have someone to sympathize with me and help me! I can tell everything to you, Arthur.”
“You are not happy with your husband?” asked the other, in a wondering tone, not able to guess what she meant.
“Happy!” echoed Helen. “Arthur, he is ill, and I have been so terrified! I feared that he was going to die; we have had such a dreadful sorrow.” She paused for a moment, and gazed about her swiftly, and laying her finger upon her lips. “He is asleep now,” she went on, “asleep for the first time in three nights, and I was afraid that we might waken him; we must not make a sound, for it is so dreadful.”
She stopped, and the other asked her what was the matter. “It was three nights ago,” she continued, “and oh, we were so happy before it! But there came a strange woman, a fearful creature, and she was drunk, and my husband found her and brought her home. She was delirious, she died here in his arms, while there was no one to help her. The dreadful thing was that David had known this woman when she was a girl—”
Helen paused again, and caught her breath, for she had been speaking very swiftly, shaken by the memory of the scene; the other put in, in a low tone, “I heard all about this woman's death, Helen, and I know about her—that was how I happen to be here.”
And the girl gave a start, echoing, “Why you happen to be here?” Afterwards she added quickly, “Oh, I forgot to ask you about that. What do you mean, Arthur?”
He hesitated a moment before he answered her, speaking very slowly. “It is so sad, Helen,” he said, “it is almost too cruel to talk about.” He stopped again, and the girl looked at him, wondering; then he went on to speak one sentence that struck her like a bolt of lightning from the sky:—“Helen, that poor woman was my mother!”
And Helen staggered back, almost falling, clutching her hands to her forehead, and staring, half dazed.
“Arthur,” she panted, “Arthur!”
He bowed his head sadly, answering, “Yes, Helen, it is dreadful—”
And the girl leaped towards him, seizing him by the shoulders with a thrilling cry; she stared into his eyes, her own glowing like fire. “Arthur!” she gasped again, “Arthur!”
He only looked at her wonderingly, as if thinking she was mad; until suddenly she burst out frantically, “You are David's child! You are David's child!” And then for fully half a minute the two stood staring at each other, too much dazed to move or to make a sound.
At last Arthur echoed the words, scarcely audibly, “David's child!” and added, “David is your husband?” As Helen whispered “Yes” again, they stood panting for breath. It was a long time before the girl could find another word to speak, except over and over, “David's child!” She seemed unable to realize quite what it meant, she seemed unable to put the facts together.
But then suddenly Arthur whispered: “Then it was your husband who ruined that woman?” and as Helen answered “Yes,” she grasped a little of the truth, and also of Arthur's thought. She ran on swiftly: “But oh, it was not his fault, he was only a boy, Arthur! And he wished to marry her, but they would not let him—I must tell you about that!” Then she stopped short, however; and when she went on it was in sudden wild joy that overcame all her other feelings, joy that gleamed in her face and made her fling herself down upon her knees before Arthur and clutch his hands in hers.
“Oh,” she cried, “it was God who sent you, Arthur,—oh, I know that it was God! It is so wonderful to think of—to have come to us all in a flash! And it will save David's life—it was the thought of the child and the fate that it might have suffered that terrified him most of all, Arthur. And now to think that it is you—oh, you! And you are David's son—I cannot believe it, I cannot believe it!” Then with a wild laugh she sprang up again and turned, exclaiming, “Oh, he will be so happy,—I must tell him—we must not lose an instant!”
She caught Arthur's hand again, and started towards the house; but she had not taken half a dozen steps before she halted suddenly, and whispered, “Oh, no, I forgot! He is asleep, and we must not waken him now, we must wait!”
And then again the laughter broke out over her face, and she turned upon him, radiant. “It is so wonderful!” she cried. “It is so wonderful to be happy, to be free once more! And after so much darkness—oh, it is like coming out of prison! Arthur, dear Arthur, just think of it! And David will be so glad!” The tears started into the girl's eyes; she turned away to gaze about her at the golden morning and to drink in great draughts of its freshness that made her bosom heave. The life seemed to have leaped back into her face all at once, and the color into her cheeks, and she was more beautiful than ever. “To think of being happy!” she panted, “happy again! Oh, if I were not afraid of waking David, you do not know how happy I could be! Don't you think I ought to waken him anyway, Arthur?—it is so wonderful—it will make him strong again! It is so beautiful that you, whom I have always been so fond of, that you should be David's son! And you can live here and be happy with us! Arthur, do you know I used to think how much like David you looked, and wonder at it; but, oh, are you sure it is true?”
She chanced to think of the letter that had been left at her father's, and exclaimed, “It must have been that! You have been home, Arthur?” she added quickly. “And while father was up here?”
“Yes,” said he, “I wanted to see your father—I could not stay away from home any longer. I was so very lonely and unhappy—” Arthur stopped for a moment, and the girl paled slightly; as he saw it he continued rapidly: “There was no one there but the servant, and she gave me the letter.”
“And did she not tell you about me?” asked Helen.
“I asked if you were married,” Arthur said; “I would not listen to any more, for I could not bear it; when I had read the letter I came up here to look for my poor mother. I wanted to see her; I was as lonely as she ever was, and I wanted someone's sympathy—even that poor, beaten soul's. I heard in the town that she was dead; they told me where the grave was, and that was how I happened out here. I thought I would see it once before I left, and before the people who lived in this house were awake. Helen, when I saw you I thought it was a ghost.”
“It is wonderful, Arthur,” whispered the girl; “it is almost too much to believe—but, oh, I can't think of anything except how happy it will make David! I love him so, Arthur—and you will love him, too, you cannot help but love him.”
“Tell me about it all, Helen,” the other answered; “I heard nothing, you know, about my poor mother's story.”
Before Helen answered the question she glanced about her at the morning landscape, and for the first time thought of the fact that it was cold. “Let us go inside,” she said; “we can sit there and talk until David wakens.” And the two stole in, Helen opening the door very softly. David was sleeping in the next room, so that it was possible not to disturb him; the two sat down before the flickering fire and conversed in low whispers. The girl told him the story of David's love, and told him all about David, and Arthur in turn told her how he had been living in the meantime; only because he saw how suddenly happy she was, and withal how nervous and overwrought, he said no more of his sufferings.
And Helen had forgotten them utterly; it was pathetic to see her delight as she thought of being freed from the fearful terror that had haunted her,—she was like a little child in her relief. “He will be so happy—he will be so happy!” she whispered again and again. “We can all be so happy!” The thought that Arthur was actually David's son was so wonderful that she seemed never to be able to realize it fully, and every time she uttered the thought it was a sweep of the wings of her soul. Arthur had to tell her many times that it was actually Mary who had been named in that letter.
So an hour or two passed by, and still David did not waken. Helen had crept to the door once or twice to listen to his quiet breathing; but each time, thinking of his long trial, she had whispered that she could not bear to disturb him yet. However, she was getting more and more impatient, and she asked Arthur again and again, “Don't you think I ought to wake him now, don't you think so—even if it is just for a minute, you know? For oh, he will be so glad—it will be like waking up in heaven!”
So it went on until at last she could keep the secret no longer; she thought for a while, and then whispered, “I know what I will do—I will play some music and waken him in that way. That will not alarm him, and it will be beautiful.”
She went to the piano and sat down. “It will seem queer to be playing music at this hour,” she whispered; but then she glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly seven, and added, “Why, no, we have often begun by this time. You know, Arthur, we used to get up wonderfully early all summer, because it was so beautiful then, and we used to have music at all sorts of times. Oh, you cannot dream how happy we were,—you must wait until you see David, and then you will know why I love him so!”
She stopped and sat thoughtfully for a moment whispering, “What shall I play?” Then she exclaimed, “I know, Arthur; I will play something that he loves very much—and that you used to love, too—something that is very soft and low and beautiful.”
Arthur had seated himself beside the piano and was gazing at her; the girl sat still for a moment more, gazing ahead of her and waiting for everything to be hushed. Then she began, so low as scarcely to be audible, the first movement of the wonderful “Moonlight Sonata.”
As it stole upon the air and swelled louder, she smiled, because it was so beautiful a way to waken David.
And yet there are few things in music more laden with concentrated mournfulness than that sonata—with the woe that is too deep for tears; as the solemn beating of it continued, in spite of themselves the two found that they were hushed and silent. It brought back to Helen's mind all of David's suffering—it seemed to be the very breathing of his sorrow; and yet still she whispered on to herself, “He will waken; and then he will be happy!”
In the next room David lay sleeping. At first it had been heavily, because he was exhausted, and afterwards, when the stupor had passed, restlessly and with pain. Then a............