“My dear,” Mr Davis protested, “of course I am glad to hear that Arthur is himself again. But that is not finding him, and I fear—”
“Oh, oh, please don't!” Helen cried, the frightened look coming back upon her face in a flash. “Oh please do not tell me that—no, no! Do let me be happy just a little while—think of it, how wretched I have been! And now to know he is safe! Oh, please, Daddy!” And the tears had welled up in Helen's eyes again. She turned quickly to Mr. Howard, her voice trembling. “Tell me that I may be happy,” she exclaimed. “You know all about it, Mr. Howard. Is it not right that I should be happy just a little?”
As her friend answered her gently that he thought it was, she sat looking at him for a moment, and then the cloud passed over. She brushed away her tears, and put her arms about her father again.
“I cannot help it,” she went on, quickly, “I must be happy whether I want to or not! You must not mind anything I do! For oh, think what it means to have been so wretched, so crushed and so frightened! I thought that all my life was to be like that, that I could never sing again, because Arthur was ruined. Nobody will ever know how I felt,—how many tears I shed; and now think what it means to be free—to be free,—oh, free! And to be able to be good once more! I should go mad if I thought about it!”
Helen had risen as she spoke, and she spread out her arms and flung back her head and drank in a deep breath of joy. She began singing, half to herself; and then as that brought a sudden idea into her mind she ran to the window and shut it quickly. “I will sing you my hymn!” she laughed, “that is the way to be happy!”
And she went to the piano; in a minute more she had begun the chorus she had sung to Arthur, “Hail thee Joy, from Heaven descending!” The flood of emotion that was pent up within her poured itself out in the wild torrent of music, and Helen seemed happy enough to make up for all the weeks of suffering. As she swept herself on she proved what she had said,—that she would go mad if she thought much about her release; and Mr. Howard and her father sat gazing at her in wonder. When she stopped she was quite exhausted and quite dazed, and came and buried her head in her father's arms, and sat waiting until the heaving of her bosom had subsided, and she was calm once more,—in the meantime murmuring faintly to herself again and again that she was happy and that she was free.
When she looked up and brushed away her tangled hair again, perhaps she thought that her conduct was not very conventional, for she begged Mr. Howard's pardon once more, promising to be more orderly by and by. Then she added, laughing, “It is good that you should see me happy, though, because I have always troubled you with my egotisms before.” She went on talking merrily, until suddenly she sprang up and said, “I shall have to sing again if I do not run away, so I am going upstairs to make myself look respectable!” And with that she danced out of the room, waking the echoes of the house with her caroling:
“Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!”
Lus-tig im Leid, sing'ich von Lieb-e!