At the same time a carriage drove rapidly through the deserted street
in which Doctor Braun lived, and many faces appeared at the windows to
see what it was. It was an elegant coach, with two high-bred horses,
and a large coat-of-arms on the doors. On the box, by the side of the
coachman, a servant in gorgeous livery was seated. The coach stopped
before Doctor Braun's house, the servant jumped down to open the door,
and a young lady stepped out. She walked rapidly through the little
garden up to the door.
"Is Mrs. Braun at home?"
"I do not know," replied the maid, casting a shy glance at the velvet
cloak and the charming white bonnet of the lady. "I will see."
"You need not go," said Sophie, who suddenly appeared, adorned with a
long kitchen apron; "here I am."
With these words she hastened with open arms towards the lady, who, for
her part, drew back the white veil and flew into her arms.
"Dearest Helen!"
"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!"
"Did you really think so?" asked Helen, raising herself and looking at
Sophie fixedly with her large sorrowful eyes.
Sophie cast down her own before this look. She did not wish to say No;
and she was too honest to say Yes. But she never hesitated long. Now or
never was the moment to tell Helen all she had had on her heart for so
long a time.
"Helen!" she said, looking up frankly and calmly with her deep blue
eyes; "I cannot feign and will not feign for any one, and least of all
for you whom I love dearly. Come, sweetheart, sit down by me on the
sofa here, and let us talk like two sisters; and let us be sisters, if
never again, at least for this hour. If you did not wish me to speak
candidly to you, I think you would have hardly come to me, when you
have so many brighter and greater friends. Am I right?"
"Go on!" said Helen, as if it were comfort and consolation merely to
hear the voice of her friend.
"You ask me," continued Sophie, gathering courage as she spoke,
"whether I really thought you were happy. I do not. You do not look
like a happy woman. Your beautiful, pale face says No, even if your
tongue should say Yes. I have often read in your face--I have read
there long, long stories of which your lips did not say a word, and I
will tell you what I read. Shall I do it?"
"Go on!" said Helen.
"I read on your brow that your mind is not satisfied with anything
except what is great and extraordinary, and even not always with that;
and I have read in your wondrously-beautiful eyes that your heart longs
for love as much as human heart can wish for it. Thus, there has always
been a struggle between your mind and your heart. You wish to rule and
to love at the same time, and that cannot be done. Helen! love, true
love--and there is no other love--must be humble; it bears all thing's
and believes all things; it wants only to be one with the person loved,
one in joy and one in sorrow Look, sweetheart! such love has fallen to
my share, and therefore I know what I say. Franz and I have but one
will: he wants to do what is right, and so do I; and even if our views
ever should be apart, our hearts are always united. All joys are doubly
great, and all sorrows are diminished by half. I felt that when my dear
papa died. What would have become of me if Franz had not been there?"
"I had no one when my father died!" Helen said, sadly.
"I know it, darling; and often, when I thought how lonely you were, and
how you did not have a soul to whom you could pour out your grief, I
have thrown myself on Franz's bosom, who many a time could not imagine
what brought me to him so suddenly and so passionately. You stand
alone, even now when you are on the point of being married; and what is
a thousand times worse, you are quite sure in your heart that it will
always be so--that your husband will never be your friend, your
brother, your beloved, before whom your soul lies open and clear, like
a crystal-clear mountain lake, into which the sun looks brightly down
to the very bottom."
"Never! never!" whispered Helen.
"I knew it," said Sophie, sadly; "but, Helen, if it is bad enough for
you to marry the prince without loving him, it is still worse to become
his wife while you are cherishing in your heart the image of another
man."
Deep blushes flew over Helen's face as Sophie said these words in a
firm voice, and at the same time looked at her so gravely and
reproachfully with her large blue eyes.
"No, darling; don't be ashamed of having loved him. That is not what I
blame you for. He is a man of uncommon attraction, and gifted by nature
with all that can charm woman. I do not even blame you for loving him
still. Who can cast aside true love so promptly? But, Helen, since it
is so, do not marry the prince! You ought not to do it from respect for
yourself, from respect for him, if he deserves respect."
"It is too late!" said Helen, hiding her face in her hands.
"Never too late!" exclaimed Sophie, passionately, and showing how
deeply her heart was moved. "It is never too late to confess a mistake
which must make you and him unspeakably unhappy. Do not misunderstand
me, Helen! I do not speak in favor of that man who, if he ever really
deserved your love, has long since forfeited all claim to it. I never
was a friend of his; his so-called brilliant qualities never attracted
me, because they were not founded upon goodness of heart; and, in my
eyes, good old Bemperlein stands immeasurably higher than Oswald Stein.
But, because he is not worthy of you, must you therefore marry a man
for whom your heart feels nothing, however estimable he may otherwise
be? Are there no other men in the world but Oswald and the prince? Oh,
Helen! I wish I had the tongue of angels to touch your heart, so that
you might humbly bow before the truth, and esteem all the splendor of
the world as nothing in comparison with the happiness you would find in
being true to yourself!"
Helen shuddered as if really one of the heavenly hosts were speaking to
her.
"Oh, you are so good!" she said. "I wish I were like you."
"You can be so, if you but choose."
"But how can I escape? I have pledged my word! I cannot take it back!"
"Speak openly to the prince!" said Sophie, who thought such a remedy
quite simple and natural.
"Rather die!" murmured Helen.
At that moment there came a knock at the door. The servant appeared
with a note in his hand.
"A special messenger, ma'am, on horseback, with a note from the
baroness."
Helen seized the note hastily.
"From mamma!"
She cast a glance at it and trembled.
"What is it, Helen?"
"Mamma has just heard from Grenwitz, that brother has been taken very
ill. She must go back immediately!"
"Poor girl!" said Sophie. "How pale and frightened you look! Shall I go
with you?"
"No, no!" said Helen. "You stay! I must go alone. Good-by, dearest
Sophie! Good-by!"
Helen tore herself from Sophie's arms.
Sophie accompanied her to the carriage. She held her friend's hand
firmly in her own, and said: "Let me hear from you, Helen! And, Helen,
whatever you do, follow the voice of your warm heart; it is a better
counsellor than your cold intellect!"
"I will do so," said Helen, already in the carriage; "you may rely upon
it, I will do so. Good-by!"
The servant closed the door; the carriage dashed off. Sophie followed
it with her eyes till it had turned the nearest corner, then she went
slowly back to the house, her lovely face bent thoughtfully to the
ground.