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 God’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 God’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 pass 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 God.”  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:—­