It was hard for Hayward to wait. He could hear Helen's words coming from the second door down the corridor, and only the doctor's hand stayed him from rushing into her presence. They moved quietly nearer to the door and stood still to hear what she was saying. As they listened tides of joy rolled in upon Hayward's heart....
Helen was humming a song that her husband had heard of old. Her voice, though somewhat weak, had its old joyous ring. Hayward could easily imagine she was coming tripping down to the stable for her horse to take a morning canter. When she finished the song and was silent, he noted for the first time that the grated door to her cell was locked and its rungs and pickets were heavily padded. He resented that, and turned upon the physician to protest, but was held by the doctor's signal for silence. He obeyed, but his resentment grew as Helen's words came again in gentle accents to them.
She was moving slowly about, and was evidently arranging some flowers—to judge by the things she was saying to them. It was very kind of the doctor, her husband thought, to let her have her flowers—she was always so fond of them.... In half a minute she was singing a lullaby that she had sung to their baby. Hayward could hardly contain himself. And when he heard her walk across the room,—to a window, it seemed,—and say, in a tone so expressive of longing: "If Hayward would only come and take me out to-day! It is such a beautiful day outside," he snatched his arm free of the doctor's hand and called to her as he sprang in front of the door.
Helen turned at his call, and looked at him for a space with dilated eyes. In that space Hayward saw that her cell was padded throughout, floor and walls, and that there was not a flower or a flower-pot in the room, that her clothing was torn, her hair streaming and dishevelled. Before he had time to make any inferences from these facts, Helen, still gazing at him with that peculiar stare, started across the room to him, saying gladly, "Oh, you have come to take me out driving!"
Nearly to the door she stopped. Slowly her face changed its whole expression. The wide-eyed stare gave way, and the old Helen looked at him a moment from her eyes. In another moment her face was convulsed in a spasm of aversion.
"Go away! Go away!" she cried out wildly as she turned from him. Retreating into a far corner of her cell, she called to the attendant, "Oh, save me!—take him away!—keep him away!"
"Why, Helen, don't you know me?" Hayward called to her.
"Yes, yes, I know you, but in God's name leave me! Don't let him in! Don't let him in!" she pleaded with the physician, who also had come to the door.
"I'll not hurt you, Helen. You know I'll not hurt you. Don't run from me. You know I'll not hurt you."
Hayward motioned to the physician to unlock the door. Whereupon Helen uttered a blood-curdling scream as she cowered back into her corner.