[From Helen's Diary.]

June 5, 18—. Received a short note from Edgar at noon. It was a peculiar, unnatural note in some respects. It seemed a mechanical affair, instead of an impulse of the heart. He did not call this evening. I am much worried over it.

June 6, 18—. Edgar is just now gone. This morning I received a note from him as usual, saying that he had secured a cottage just at the edge of town for us. He called at eight. He was in the wildest spirits. I have never seen him in this way before. His happiness infected me. He has had a wonderful stroke of good fortune, by which he has come into the proprietorship of the Enterprise, as well as the editorship, and he has just engaged in a land speculation—which I am not to mention—that is going to be worth a fortune to him,—something about a railroad grant, or something. I don't understand it exactly.

The cottage has seven rooms, and we are going to furnish them all. Ed laughed, and observed that he had already reached the linen collar period of his existence. There was a certain grim ring in his laugh to-night. I feel anything but grim. My entire person feels like a perpetual smile of joy. This stroke of fortune is glorious. Ed said that I must say absolutely nothing about affairs. That he had some people in his hands, and that we must be very discreet. I can't bear discretion. It always seems to suggest something to be ashamed of. Of course, it doesn't in this instance, because Edgar is the one who enjoins it. There is something glorious in this feeling of absolute faith. To know that for the rest of my life I shall never know the responsibility of having to decide anything. To know that I can place myself entirely in his hands, and be confident of always being counselled aright. I could never have loved him if I could not have felt this. It is my temperament. I do not feel this because I love him, but I love him because of this feeling. A good and honorable man—a man above the petty meanness of his fellows—inspires one almost with reverence.

There is a certain magnificent assurance of superiority in Edgar Braine, so that at times the thought of his marriage with a woman like me seems almost outrageous. I feel so inferior, morally and intellectually. I fear being a drag upon him; an obstacle in the road of his advancement. I am determined to keep up with him as far as it lies in my power. He said to-night that he lived for but two things—power, and my love. I can satisfy the latter, and will never hinder the former. I realize how dear this wish for power is to him; how he longs to be able to better the condition of those people whom he comes in contact with. His ideas are constantly broadening. To-night he talked a little wildly, but in a tone and with a manner that in some way carried conviction with it, of becoming a power not only among his immediate associates but among the people in general; a power in the nation.

When I think of the noble aims of this man that I love, I cannot help feeling that such a situation would vastly benefit the country. With such a spirit at the helm, there could be no danger of wreck. Heigho! What speculations.

I found myself smiling at the absurdity of my thoughts just now. If I believed that such a thing could be, I should not be so supremely happy as I am now. I could sacrifice my feelings, if it were to the interests of the country, or Edgar. I should even enjoy sacrificing them, I think. But there will never be any question of that. It seems to me that all has come to the point that I have longed for. We are to be married; never separated; live comfortably, without the necessity for anxiety as to the practical things of life, and love each other unmolested by anyone or anything. This is absolute and perfect happiness. To love and live with no ambition save to do right, and feel that the world may be a little better for two loving people having lived in it.

When I teased Ed to-night about not taking me to New York for our wedding trip, he actually looked unhappy, and as though he thought I meant it. It made me laugh to see the miserable expression on his face for a moment, when I have been thanking Heaven all this time that we could not afford to go further than Chicago, and so would get back here to Thebes and our little home in half the time. Besides, I hate travelling. It covers me with dust till I feel as if I could never be clean again. The dust seems to get even into my mind and soul. It isn't so with Edgar. There is a halo of immaculateness about him: cleanliness is in the very atmosphere when he is near. He is absolutely an indescribable man. He walks down the street, and if one but gets a glimpse of his shiny coat-tails rounding the corner, one is impressed with the superiority of the manner those coat-tails have of rounding that corner. One knows that they belong to a man who is worth knowing. One would be impressed that the proprietor of those shiny coat-tails had accomplished some great thing.

If I don't stop right here, I shall get to elaborating on this subject until I shall not get to bed at all.

Good night, Edgar. I hold up my face to be kissed.

June 19th. I have not written in this diary for days. There has been plenty to write about—plenty of emotions, not many incidents.

Edgar has reached what, to me, seems the pinnacle of fame and honor—though he only laughs when I say so, and says, with almost a touch of contempt in his tone—"Wait!"

I am a thousand times more elated over the situation than he is—and yet I hardly know whether I am quite as happy as I was before, or not. When I am overwhelmed with exaltation and admiration for his wonderful achievements, Edgar smiles indulgently, and the other night he turned suddenly and said:

"Listen, dear! When I was a young boy, I used to become frenzied at times with certain indignities that other boys with only half my brains compelled me to endure, because they happened to be situated more advantageously than I as regards material things. While I had perfect contempt for them, I felt a wild desire to convince them of my superiority, as I was convinced of it. I decided that brute force was the only thing at my command at first, and one morning, went out and whipped that one of them whose prestige was such in the town that victory over him meant reverence for me from the rest in the set. It was this very respect which I had whipped the fellow to gain, and which these little ruffians accorded me afterward, that disgusted me. I found I didn't value the respect of a lot of little loafers who could appreciate superiority of that kind only. That evening, when I saw my mother patching those clothes that had been torn in the fight, I discovered that there was no longer even the flavor of satisfaction left me. I said then, 'I will adopt a larger plan.' I did. I had then no thought that—that just this would be the outcome," and here he looked out of the window for a time, with the strange, determined, ominous look that I have seen in his face so often lately.

"But the situation is more than my—wildest dreams could have anticipated."

Here he laughed. His laugh, too, has changed a little lately. He went on in a sort of abstracted tone. "And what that first brutal success was to me, now is this that enthuses you so. Like that first success it has, from the very fact of its unsatisfactory character, urged and assured greater achievements. I think of it as paltry, inconsequential—from my present point of view. It is only a means by which to accomplish great things, things worthy of achievement—as most people regard worthiness.

"The present is nothing to me, absolutely nothing, except so far as it affects the future."

Then he fell into one of his little silent moments, of which he has so many now. There is something about it all that makes me feel strange and hysterical. I am so proud of him that I want to cry out on the street corners that this man belongs to me—and yet there is something lacking. He is with me even more than usual, for it seems as though he has sudden plans and constantly occurring things to tell me about.

He always says: "Be discreet; never speak to your Aunt or anyone but me of any of these things. They are just between us." He says that I am remarkably trustworthy, and that he could not live if he could not tell me about how things are going. He never seems to think of himself. He will sit for ten minutes looking at me without speaking, and suddenly say:

"Wait, wait! Just a little time and everything shall be yours. I will bring the world to you and lay it at your feet," and when he says it I almost believe it to be true for a moment.

It is only because his nerves are overwrought. (He is nervous to the verge of insanity sometimes.) It seems to me that I am the only one in the world who could possibly understand his temperament. He says I am. The other night we were at a small reception given by Mrs. Clews. He walked about the house all the time I was putting on my things. I knew that he was so nervous and excited over something that he could hardly control himself.

When we reached the Clews's he suddenly became another man. For an hour and a half he was calm almost to coldness. He was magnificent. Mr. Hildreth was there, and once while Edgar and I were talking together we saw him near us. Edgar had taken me a little aside, and was saying nothing, but allowing himself to relax for a moment from the strain under which I knew he was keeping himself. Suddenly he saw Mr. Hildreth, and his tone and attitude and manner changed completely. Where he had seemed almost like a tired, petulant child looking for comfort from me, he suddenly changed to a stern, masterful man without a trace of helplessness or nervousness.

He said: "This is as good a time as any," and excused himself and went over to Hildreth, and touched his arm. It seemed to me that Mr. Hildreth was positively deferential to him. It was no doubt my imagination, but they disappeared for a while, and when they returned, Edgar and I left.

He was his usual self—the self that others know, until we were outside. Then he became silent—preoccupied. I asked him what he wanted with Mr. Hildreth, and he laughed and said:

"A little matter of business—technicalities that you could not understand." There is a great deal that I cannot understand, and these things he never tells me about, because he says that if he annoyed me with these dry details, I would not listen to him at all by and bye. As though that were true!

When we reached home, he suddenly took me in his arms, and said: "How glorious you are! It would be nothing to me if you were not to share it with me."

He talks in such a wild fashion at times. I suppose he means all this honor and attention that he receives. Since it has become certain that his exertions are to carry through the railroad affair to the advantage of Thebes, he seems to have become a sort of god with the Thebans. I don't understand the business part of it very well, but I know that every one thinks that he has done a great thing for the town. When I speak of the gratitude that the people of Thebes should feel, he shrugs his shoulders and changes the subject. Once, he said in a sort of a passion:—"For heaven's sake never speak again of anything I seem to have done for Thebes."

This sensitiveness and modesty are constant with him in everything that he does—though the trait seems to be intensified now.

The other day I stopped at the office and some man was in there talking to Edgar, and said something about his being a public benefactor, and Edgar said, coldly:

"Don't be grateful too soon, my dear fellow," and when he saw me, his whole face lighted up, and he dismissed the man.

The man stared at me as he went out, and suddenly Edgar looked like a thunder cloud, and slipped between us a sort of improvised screen for me. He said after the door had closed:

"I don't want you to come to the office any more—things are a little different now."

They are different because he has grown to thinking of the effect of everything on other people now, instead of just ourselves, as he always has done. He has always said:

"As long as one has a clear conscience, and is satisfied with one's self, the opinions of other people are of little consequence."

I don't feel quite comfortable with the change, but he reminded me that circumstances alter cases; that one must adapt himself to changed situations. I asked him if it was quite right, and he looked at me a long time, and finally said with the old, new determination in his face and voice: "We are to do it," without answering my question. Somehow it taught me a lesson. I think I shall never again question anything that he says. His tone, his manner seemed to forbid it, seemed to settle forever any doubt as to a possibility of anything being wrong that he says or decides.

I was almost astonished at myself afterwards, when I realized that I had questioned any motive he might have had, or any suggestion he might have made. A woman like me, questioning the propriety of anything that such a man as Edgar Braine might do!

Sometimes I try to make up my mind whether he looked more magnificent in his shiny coat with fringed bindings, or in his present immaculate toilet. I can come to no conclusion. The reverence and awe that Edgar Braine inspired in his shabby suit were overwhelming. The dignity that he lends to his present clothes is—well, is simply glorious. He makes the clothes. In either case, one is impressed that clothes are but a matter of convenience, and really of too little importance to be remembered—except long enough to put them on and take them off—by Edgar Braine. Such a man as he would be perfect in any clothes.