She was thinking about Arthur again, and about his fearful plight; there rushed back upon her all the memories of their childhood, and of the happiness which they had known together.  The thought of the broken figure which she had seen by the roadside became more fearful to her every moment.  It was not that it troubled her conscience, for Helen could still argue to herself that she had done nothing to wrong her friend, that there had been nothing selfish in her attitude towards him; she had wished him to be happy.  It seemed to her that it was simply a result of the cruel perversity of things that she had been trampling upon her friend’s happiness in order to reach her own, and that all her struggling had only served to make things worse.  The fact that it was not her fault, however, did not make the situation seem less tragic and fearful to her; it had come to such a crisis now that it drove her almost mad to think about it, yet she was completely helpless to know what to do, and as she strode up and down the room, she clasped her hands to her aching head and cried aloud in her perplexity.

Then too her surging thoughts hurried on to another unhappiness,—­to her father, and what he would say when he learned the dreadful news.  How could she explain it to him?  And how could she tell him about her marriage?  At the mere thought of that the other horror seized upon her again, and she sank down in a chair by the window and hid her face in her hands.

“Oh, how can I have done it?” she gasped to herself.  “Oh, it was so dreadful!  And what am I to do now?”

That last was the chief question, the one to which all others led; yet it was one to which she could find no answer.  She was completely confused and helpless, and she exclaimed aloud again and again, “Oh, if I could only find some one to tell me!  I do not know how I can keep Arthur from behaving in that dreadful way, and I know that I cannot ever marry Mr. Harrison!”

The more she tortured herself with these problems, the more agitated she became.  She sat there at the window, clutching the sill in her hands and staring out, seeing nothing, and knowing only that the time was flying, and that her anxiety was building itself up and becoming an agony which she could not bear.

“Oh, what am I to do?” she groaned again and again; and she passed hours asking herself the fearful question; the twilight had closed about her, and the moon had risen behind the distant hills.

So oblivious to all things about her was she, that she failed at first to notice something else, something which would ordinarily have attracted her attention at once,—­a sound of music which came to her from somewhere near.  It was the melody of Grieg’s “An den Frubling” played upon a violin, and it had stolen into Helen’s heart and become part of her own stormy emotion before she had even thought of what it was or whence it came.  The little piece is the very soul of the springtime passion, and to the girl it was the very utterance of all her yearning, lifting her heart in a great throbbing prayer.  When it had died away her hands were clenched very tightly, and her breath was coming fast.