The man was leaning forward, gazing into the girl"s face, his own countenance fearful to see. "I could die," he gasped; "I could die with a song--He has shown me His face--and He is good! But I dare not leave you--you--and I am going! Helen! Helen!"
The man"s fearful force seemed to have been acting upon the girl like magnetism, for tho the look of wild suffering had not left her face, she had raised herself and was staring into his burning eyes; then suddenly, with an effort that shook her frame she clenched her hands and gave a gasp for breath, and panted, scarcely audibly: "What--can--I--do?"
David"s head had sunk, but he mastered himself once more; and he whispered, "I leave you to G.o.d--I leave you to life! You can be a soul,--you can win--you _must_ win, you must _live_--and worship--and rejoice! You must kneel here--here, while I am going, never more to return; and you must know that you can never see me again, that I shall no longer exist; and you must cling to your faith in the G.o.d who made you, and praise Him for all that He does! And you will not shed a tear--not a tear!"
And his grip tightened yet more desperately; he stared in one last wild appeal, and gasped again, "Promise me--not a tear!"
And again the throbbing force of his soul roused the girl; she could not speak, she was choking; but she gave a sign of a.s.sent, and then all at once David"s fearful hold relaxed. He gave one look more, one that stamped itself upon Helen"s soul forever by its fearful intensity of yearning; and after it he breathed a sigh that seemed to pant out the last mite of strength in his frame, and sank backwards upon the sofa, with Helen still clinging to him.
There for an instant or two he lay, breathing feebly; and the girl heard a faint whisper again--"Not a tear--not a tear!" He opened his eyes once more and gazed at her dimly, and then a slight trembling shook his frame. His chest heaved once more and sank, and after it everything was still.
For an instant Helen stared at him, dazed; then she clutched him by the shoulders, whispering hoa.r.s.ely-then calling louder and louder in frenzied terror, "David, David!" He gave no answer, and with a cry that was fearful to hear the girl clutched him to her. The body was limp and lifeless--the head fell forward as if the neck were broken; and Helen staggered backward with a scream.
There came an instant of fierce agony then; she stood in the center of the room, reeling and swaying, clutching her head in her hands, her face upturned and tortured. And first she gasped, "He is dead!"
and then "I shall not ever see him again!" And she choked and swallowed a lump in her throat, whispering in awful terror, "Not a tear--not a tear!" And then she flung up her arms and sank forward with an incoherent cry, and fell senseless into Arthur"s arms.
A week had pa.s.sed since David"s death; and Helen was in her father"s home once more, sitting by the window in the gathering twilight. She was yery pale, and her eyes were sunken and hollow; but the beauty of her face was still there, tho in a strange and terrible way. Her hand was resting upon Arthur"s, and she was gazing into his eyes and speaking in a deep, solemn voice.
"It will not ever leave me, Arthur, I know it will not ever leave me; it is like a fearful vision that haunts me night and day, a voice that cries out in my soul and will not let me rest; and I know I shall never again be able to live like other people, never be free from its madness. For oh, I do not think it is often that a human soul sees what I saw--he seemed to drag me out into the land of death with him, into the very dwelling-place of G.o.d. And I almost went with him, Arthur, almost! Can you dream what I suffered--have you any idea of what it means to a human being to make such an effort? I loved that man as if he had been my own soul; I was bound to him so that he was all my life, and to have him go was like tearing my heart in two; and he had told me that I should never see him again, that there was nothing to look for beyond death. And yet, Arthur, I won--do you ever realize it?--I won. It seemed to me as if the earth were reeling about me--as if the very air I breathed were fire; and oh, I thought that he was dead--that he was gone from me forever, and I believed that I was going mad! And then, Arthur, those awful words of his came ringing through my mind, "Not a tear, not a tear!" I had no faith, I could see nothing but that the world was black with horror; and yet I heard those words! It was love--it was even fear, I think, that held me to it; I had worshiped his sacredness, I had given all my soul to the wonder of his soul; and I dared not be false to him--I dared not dishonor him,--and I knew that he had told me that grief was a crime, that there was truth in the world that I might cling to. And oh, Arthur, I won it--I won it!
I kept the faith--David"s faith; and it is still alive upon the earth. It seems to me almost as if I had won his soul from death--as if I had saved his spirit in mine-as if I could still rejoice in his life, still have his power and his love; and there is a kind of fearful consecration in my heart, a glory that I am afraid to know of, as if G.o.d"s hand had been laid upon me.
"David used to tell me, Arthur, that if only that power is roused in a soul, if only it dwells in that sacredness, there can no longer be fear or evil in its life; that the strife and the vanity and the misery in this cruel world about us come from nothing else but that men do not know this vision, that it is so hard--so dreadfully hard--to win. And he used to say that this power is infinite, that it depends only upon how much one wants it; and that he who possessed it had the gift of King Midas, and turned all things that he touched to gold. That is real madness to me, Arthur, and will not let me be still; and yet I know that it cannot ever die in me; for whenever there is an instant"s weakness there flashes over me again the fearful thought of David, that he is gone back into nothingness, that nowhere can I ever see him, ever hear his voice or speak to him again,-that I am alone-alone! And that makes me clench my hands and nerve my soul, and fight again, and still again! Arthur, I did that for days, and did not once know why-only because David had told me to, because I was filled with a fearful terror of proving a coward soul, because I had heard him say that if one only held the faith and prayed, the word would come to him at last. And it was true--it was true, Arthur; it was like the tearing apart of the skies, it was as if I had rent my way through them. I saw, as I had never dreamed I could see when I heard David speak of it, how G.o.d"s Presence is infinite and real; how it guides the blazing stars, and how our life is but an instant and is nothing beside it; and how it makes no difference that we pa.s.s into nothingness--His glory is still the same. Then I saw too what a victory I had won, Arthur,--how I could live in it, and how I was free, and master of my life; there came over me a feeling for which there is no word, a kind of demon force that was madness. I thought of that wonderful sixth chapter of Isaiah that David used to think so much beyond reading, that he used to call the artist"s chapter; and oh, I knew just what it was that I had to do in the world!"
Helen had been speaking very intensely, her voice shaking; the other"s gaze was riveted upon her face. "Arthur," she added, her voice sinking to a whisper, "I have no art, but you have; and we must fight together for this fearful glory, we must win this prize of G.o.d." And for a long time the two sat in silence, trembling, while the darkness gathered about them. Helen had turned her head, and gazed out, with face uplifted, at the starry shield that quivered and shook above them; suddenly Arthur saw her lips moving again, and heard her speaking the wonderful words that she had referred to,--her voice growing more and more intense, and sinking into a whisper of awe:--
"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
"Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
"And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
"Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
"Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a living coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
"And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
"Also I heard the Voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."
THE END