Helen. Happy?—I am, you were right; but I have been to-day down to the very glen where we took that last lovely walk together, and all the beautiful past came back to me like life.—I am happy; you must count me so still.
Annie. With what I have just now heard, how can I?
Helen. It is this war that has parted us; and so, this is but my part in these noble and suffering times, and that great thought reaches overall my anguish. But for this war I might have been—hath this world such flowers, and do they call it a wilderness?—I might have been, even now, you know it, Annie, his wife, his wife, his. But our hearts are cunningly made, many-stringed; and often much good music is left in them when we count them broken. That which makes the bitterness of this lot, the inconceivable, unutterable bitterness of it, even that I can bear now, calmly, and count it God's kindness too.
Annie. I do not understand you, sister.
Helen. What if this young royalist, Annie, when he quarrelled with my brother, and took arms against my country, what if he had kept faith to me?
Annie. Well.
Helen. Well? Oh no, it would not have been well. Why, my home would have been with that pursuing army now, my fate bound up with that hollow cause,—these very hands might have fastened the sword of oppression; nay, the sword whose edge was turned against you, against you all, and against the cause, that with tears, night and morning, you were praying for, and with your heart's best blood stood ready to seal every hour. No, it is best as it is; or if my wish grows deeper still, if in my heart I envy, with murmuring thought, the blessed brides, on whose wedding dawns the laughing sun of peace, then with a wish I cast away the glory of these suffering times.—It is best as it is. I am content.
Annie. I wish I could understand you, Helen. You say, "if he had kept faith to you;"—carried you off, you mean! Do you mean, sister Helen, that of your own will you would ever have gone with him, with Everard Maitland,—that traitor?
Helen. Gone with him? Would I not? Would I not? Dear child, we talk of what, as yet, you know nothing of. Gone with him? Some things are holy, Annie, only until the holier come.
Annie. (looking toward the door.) Stay, stay. What is it, George?