"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!"