That was the picture before Helen’s eyes; she did not think of the fearful tragedy of it—­she had no feeling for tragedy, she knew no more about suffering than a child just born.  But joy she knew, and joy she was; she was the multitude lifted up in its ecstasy, throbbing, burning and triumphant, and she sang the great choruses, one after another, and the piano beneath her fingers thundered and rang with the instrumental part.  Surely in all music there is no utterance of joy so sustained and so overwhelming in its intensity as this; it is a frenzy almost more than man can stand; it is joy more than human—­the joy of existence:—­

  “Pleasure every creature living
    From kind Nature’s breast receives;
  Good and evil, all are seeking
    For the rosy path she leaves.”

And so the torrent of passionate exultation swept Helen onward with it until the very end, the last frantic prestissimo chorus, and then she sprang to her feet and flung up her hands with a cry.  She stood thus for a moment, glowing with exultation, and then she sank down again and sat staring before her, the music still echoing through every fiber of her soul, and the shouting multitude still surging before her.

For just how long that lasted, she knew not, but only that her wild mood was gradually subsiding, and that she felt herself sinking back, as a bird sinks after its flight; then suddenly she turned.  Arthur was at her side, and she gave a cry, for he had seized her hand in his, and was covering it with burning kisses.

“Arthur!  Arthur!” she gasped.

The young man gazed up at her, and Helen remembered the scene in the forest, and realized what she had done.  She had shaken him to the very depths of his being by the emotion which she had flung loose before him, and he seemed beside himself at that moment, his hair disordered and his forehead hot and flushed.  He made a move as if to clasp the girl in his arms, and Helen tore her hand loose by main force and sprang back to the doorway.

“Arthur!” she cried.  “What do you mean?”

He clutched at a chair for support, and stood staring at her.  For fully a minute they remained thus, Helen trembling with alarm; then his head sank, and he flung himself down upon the sofa, where he lay sobbing passionately.  Helen remained gazing at him with wide open and astonished eyes.

“Arthur!” she exclaimed again.

But he did not hear her, for the cruel sobbing that shook his frame.  Helen, as soon as her first alarm had passed, came softly nearer, till she stood by the sofa; but still he did not heed her, and she did not dare even to put her hand upon his shoulder.  She was afraid of him, her dearest friend, and she knew not what to make of him.

“Arthur,” she whispered again, when he was silent for a moment.  “Please speak to me, Arthur.”

The other gazed up at her with a look of such helpless despair and longing upon his face that Helen was frightened still more.  He had been sobbing as if his heart would break, but his eyes were dry.