Poe. To-night!
Hel. To-night?
Poe. Why not? You say it as though night and day were not the same to the soul—except that night is more beautiful! Why not go?
Hel. I will tell you, love. (Drawing him back to the large chair) Come, listen. (She sits in chair, and he kneels by her, the moonlight covering them) Because I love you more than you love beauty, God or night, and you must live for me. And to live means—rest—sleep—
Poe. Do you love me so much? O, ’t is like cool waters falling about me to hear you say it.
Hel. I will help you, Edgar. Already I feel my strength. Where I may serve you I ’ll not meekly go, but go exultant. The thorns and stones so harsh to human feet, I ’ll press as they were buds, and leave my blood for kisses.
Poe. Oh, go on.
Hel. Yes, I ’ve more to tell you. It is—that you must help me, too. To-day—before you looked at me the first time—I was dying. Ah, more,—I was about to set the seal of death on my soul. My mother, who died at sea when I was born, gave me a heritance with winds and waves and stars. But I was nursed by hands through whose clay ran no immortal streams. Cradled in convention, fed on sophistries, I wove a shroud about my soul, and within that hardening chrysalis it was dying away when you called it forth in time to live—dear God, in time to live! Now you see how much you are to me, Edgar. I must not lose you. But you must be careful and patient with me, for my newly-bared soul shrinks from the wonders so familiar to you, and I may fly back to my chrysalis to escape the pain.
Poe. I am not afraid. Would a mother leave her babe? And I am a child now, Helen. This strange, new rest you give me is like a gentle birth. I have been old all my life. Now the longing comes for a little of the childhood that was never mine. The years fall from me, and I have no wish but to lie on a mother’s bosom and hear her voice prattling above me.
Hel. (Archly, leaning over him as he sits at her feet) Does my little boy want a story?