"And will you take me with you when you go back? Perhaps on Monday?"

"If the mistress of the house approves." This was addressed to Helen, who had entered.

"On Monday, Helen, may I go?"

"Yes. But then we ought to have told the trap to come for you."

"There's always George," Miriam said with innocence.

"Yes, he's always there. That's quite true," Helen said, and she spoke hollowly, as though she were indeed the shell she felt herself to be.

"But," Miriam went on, "it would be unkind to ask him."

To Uncle Alfred's concern, Helen leaned towards her sister, and spoke rapidly, in a hard, angry voice.

"Stop saying things like that! They're not funny. They make you ridiculous. And they're cruel. You've no respect—no respect for people. And George is better than you. He's sorry. That's something—a great deal. I'm not going to have him laughed at."

"Now, now," Uncle Alfred said feebly, but Helen had stopped, amazed at herself and at the loyalty which George evoked already. She knew, unwillingly, that it was a loyalty of more than words, for in her heart she felt that, in truth, she could not have him mocked. She stared before her, realizing herself and looking into a future blocked by George's bulk. She could not remember what she had been saying to Miriam; she looked at her, huddled in her chair against the storm, and at Uncle Alfred, standing with his back to the fire, jauntily swinging his eyeglass to seem at ease.

"Was I rude?" she asked.

"No, just horrid."

She went from the room slowly, through the passage and the kitchen into the garden, and George's figure went before her. She looked up at the poplars and saw that they would soon have their leaves to peep into the windows and whisper secrets of the Canipers.

"They knew," she said solemnly, "they always knew what was to happen."

Beyond the garden door she walked into a dark, damp world: mist was settling on the moor; drops spangled her dress and rested softly on her face and hands. She shut her eyes and seemed to be walking through emptiness, a place unencumbered by thoughts and people; yet she was not surprised when she was caught and held.

"Let go!" she said, without opening her eyes, and she was obeyed.

"I've been waiting for you," George said in a husky whisper.

"But I didn't say I would come."

She could hear him breathing close to her. "I can't see your eyes. You've got them shut. What's the matter? You're not crying?"

She opened them, and they were the colour of the night, grey and yet black, but they were not wet.

"I've been waiting for you," he said again, and once more she answered, "I didn't say I would come."

"I was coming to the door to ask about Mrs. Caniper," he went on, still speaking huskily and very low.

"Were you?"

"You wouldn't have liked that!"

"She is better." Emptiness was becoming peopled, and she remembered Mildred Caniper in bed, and the nurse smiling when she meant to be sympathetically sad, and Miriam, pitiful under scolding, but George was only the large figure that blocked the future: he was not real, though he talked and must be answered.

"I was coming to ask: do you hear?"

"You know now."

"But there's more. Who's the old chap who drove up tonight? Your uncle, isn't it?"

Her mind, which had lain securely in her body out of reach of hurt, was slowly being drawn into full consciousness; but he had to repeat his words before she answered them, and then she spoke with a haughtiness to which Miriam had accustomed him.

"So you have been watching?"

"Why not?" he asked defiantly. "I've got to watch. Besides," he became clumsy, shy, and humble, "I was waiting to see you."

"I'm here."

"But you're—you're like a dead thing. That night, in my room, you were alive enough. You sat there, with your mouth open, a little—I could see your teeth, and your eyes—they shone."

His words were like touches, and they distressed her into movement, into a desire to run from him.

"I'm going in," she said.

"Not yet."

"I must."

He was hovering on the edge of sentences which had their risk: she could feel that he wished to claim her but dared not, lest she should refuse his claim. He found a miserable kind of safety in staying on the brink, yet he made one venture.

"There are things we've got to talk about."

"But not tonight."

"You'll say that every night."

"There's never really any need to talk about anything," she said.

He stammered, "But—you're going to marry me. I must make—make arrangements."

She had her first real scorn of him. He was afraid of her, and she despised him for it, yet she saw that she must keep him so. She could hardly bring herself to say, "Do what you like," but having said it, she could add, with vehemence, "Don't bother me! I'm busy."

"But—" he said, and looked down: and now she seemed to be caught in his shame, a partner, and she had to wait for what he tried to say.

He looked up, saying, "You promised."

"Oh, I know."

She did not go. Perhaps people lying side by side in their graves would talk to each other like this, in voices muffled by their coffins and inarticulate because of fleshless lips, with words that had no meaning now that life, which made them, was done. And again she felt that she and George were moles, burrowing in the earth, scratching, groping for something blindly.

She brought her hands together and shook them.

"If only one could see!" she said aloud.

"What is it?"

"I feel as if I'm in a dark room."

"It's a dark night," he said, and touched her wrist. "When shall I see you again? Tomorrow?"

"You can't see me now."

"I can. Your hair has drops on it, and your face—"

"No!" she cried. "Don't tell me. Don't come with me."

She ran from him at last, and he did not follow her. Like her, he was bewildered, but for him she was a light he could not put out: for her he was the symbol of that darkness which had fallen on life.



CHAPTER XXVIII

The next day had its own bewilderment and confusion, and Helen learnt that high tragedy is not blackest gloom but a thing patched and streaked with painful brightness, and she found herself capable of a gaiety which made Miriam doubly reproachful.

"You've never been like this before," she said, "and we might have had such fun. And you shouldn't be like it now, when I'm going away tomorrow." She sat in her empty box, with her legs dangling over the side. "I'm not sure that I shall go."

"You've only two pairs of stockings without holes in them," Helen said. She was kneeling before Miriam's chest of drawers.

"Doesn't matter. I shall have to buy heaps of things. D'you know, I'm afraid he's going to be strict."

"Poor little man!"

"And when one begins to think about it seriously, Helen, will one like it very much? Who's going to play with me? There'll be Uncle Alfred and a housekeeper woman. And do you know what he said?" She struggled from the box, shut down the lid and sat on it. "He said I must think I'm going into the world to learn. Learn!"

"I expect you'll want to. You won't like yourself so much when you meet other people."

"And shan't I hate my clothes! And I have visions, sister Helen, of four elderly gentlemen sitting round a whist-table, and me reading a book in a corner. So you see—no, I don't want to take that: give it to Samson—so you see, I'm a little damped. Well, if I don't like it, I shall come back. After all, there's Daniel."

"He's tired of you."

She showed her bright, sharp teeth, and said, "He'll recover after a rest. Oh, dear! I find I'm not so young and trustful as I was, and I'm expecting to be disappointed."

"The best thing," Helen said slowly, sitting down with a lapful of clothes, "is for the worst to happen. Then you needn't be troubled any more." She took a breath. "It's almost a relief."

"Oh, I don't feel so bad as that," Miriam explained, and Helen fell back laughing loudly.

"You've spilt all my clothes," Miriam said, and began to pick them up. "And don't make such a noise. Remember Notya!"

Helen was on her side, her head rested on her outstretched arm, and her face was puckered, her mouth widened with the noise she made.

"Oh," she said, "you always think of Notya at such funny times."

"Somebody has to," Miriam replied severely, and Helen laughed again, and beat her toes against the ground. Over her, Miriam stood, stern and disgusted, clasping linen to her breast.

"You're hysterical. Nurse will come in. In fact, I'll go and fetch her. She'll grin at you!"

"Is this hysterical? It's rather nice," Helen giggled. "Let me laugh while I can. There'll be no one to say such things when you are gone." She sat up with a start, and seemed to instruct herself. "You're going," she said, and faced the fact.

Miriam threw her bundle on the bed and stood irresolute. For once, the thoughts of the two had kinship, and they saw the days before them deprived of the companionship which had been, as it were, abortive, yet dear to both; necessary, it seemed now; but the future had new things in it for Miriam, and for Helen it had fear. Nevertheless, it was Miriam who cried through quivering lips, "Helen, I won't go!"

"You must," she said practically.

"Because of George?"

She nodded: it was indeed because of George, for how could she keep her promise with Miriam in the house?

"And, after all," Miriam said brightly, "there's Zebedee. I'm not leaving you quite alone. He'll be back soon. But—it's that I don't want to do without you. I can't think how to do it."

"I know," Helen said, and added, "but you'll find out."

"And John—"

"Never mind. John doesn't know about—things. Let's pack."

And while Mildred Caniper lay on one side of the landing where the Pinderwells were playing quietly, Helen and Miriam, on the other, laughed at the prospect before them and made foolish jokes as they filled the trunk.

It was harder, next day, than Helen had guessed to hold Miriam's hand in good-bye, to kiss her with a fragile, short-lived kiss, to watch her climb into the trap and to hear her box banged into its place by the driver's seat, with an emphatic noise that settled the question of her going.

It was a cold morning and the wind bustled as though it had an interest in this affair; it caught Miriam's skirt as she stood on the trap step, and lifted the veil floating from her hat, fluttered the horse's mane and disordered Helen's hair. It was like a great cold broom trying to sweep these aliens off the moor, and, for a moment, Helen had more pity for Miriam than for herself. Miriam was exiled, while she stayed at home.

She looked up at the house front and heard the laurels rattling, and round her she saw the moor spread clear-coloured under the east wind. Halkett's high wood stood up like ranks of giants set to guard her and, though she saw them now as George's men, she had no fear of them.

"Helen!" Miriam called to her.

She went forward and stood at the carriage door. "Yes?"

"Helen—we're going. Do you remember the first time we bathed in the sea? The wind was so cold, like this, before we went into the water. We nearly ran back. That's how I feel now."

"But we didn't go back."

"Oh! here's Uncle Alfred."

"And we learnt to swim."

"Yes. Good-bye. Kiss me again."

Helen stood quite still with her hands by her sides, while the carriage bumped over the track, stopped on the road that John and Lily might say their farewells, and slowly went on again until it was out of sight and she saw the road left empty. It looked callous, too, as though it did not care what came or went on it, and as she looked about her, Helen discovered that she was in a desert world, a wilderness of wind and dead, rustling heather and angry laurel leaves, of empty houses and women whose breath whistled through their distorted mouths. And the giants, standing so great and black against the sky, were less to guard her than to keep a friend from attempted rescue.

She raised her arms and opened her hands in a gesture of avowal. No one would ever rescue her, for, by her own act, she would be chained more firmly than Andromeda when Zebedee next came up the road.

"I must get it over," she whispered quickly, and she sat down where she had stood. She had to keep her promise, and now that there was no one in the way, the thing must be done before Zebedee could come and fight for her, lest people should be hurt and precious things broken: her word, and peace, and the beauty of the moor. Yet things were broken already: life limped; it would never go quite smoothly again.

She wondered what God was doing in His own place; it seemed that He had too much to do, or had He been careless at the beginning of things and let them get out of hand? She was sorry for Him. It must be dreary to look down on His work and see it going wrong. He was probably looking at her now and clicking His tongue in vexation. "There's Helen Caniper. She ought to have married the doctor. That's what I meant her to do. What's gone wrong? Miriam? I ought to have watched her. Dear, dear, dear! I oughtn't to have set them going at all if I couldn't keep them straight." So her thoughts ran as she sat with her head bowed to her knees, but she remembered how, in George's room that night, with Miriam on the floor, she had called to God without premeditation, with the naturalness of any cry for help, and in a fashion, He had heard her. No one had taught her to pray and until then she had called on no god but the one behind the smoke. Perhaps this other one had a power which she could not understand.

She looked up, and saw a sky miraculously arched and stretching beyond sight and imagination, and she thought, simply enough, that, having made the sky, God might be tired. And surely He had proved Himself: a being who had created this did not make small mistakes with men. It was some human creature who had failed, and though it seemed like Miriam, might it not be herself? Or Mildred Caniper, or some cause beyond Mildred Caniper, going back and back, like the waves of the sea? It was impossible to fix the blame, foolish to try, unnecessary to know it. The thing had happened: it might be good, yet when she heard Halkett's voice behind her, she was only conscious of bitter evil.

"I want to talk to you," he said.

"Yes?"

He came into her view and looked down scowlingly. "I don't know what you've been up to, but I'd better tell you to begin with that I'm not a fool."

She frowned at his manner, but she said patiently, "I don't know what you mean."

"You're clever."

"No."

"Then why have you got rid of her like that?"

"Are you speaking of my sister?"

"Yes, I am. I want to know why you've sent her off."

"I don't think it's your affair, but I will tell you. She was not happy here. If she had been happy, she would not have behaved foolishly with you."

"Ah! I thought you'd come to that. I see."

"What do you see?"

"Why you've got rid of her."

"I suppose you are hinting something," she said wearily. "Please don't do it. I cannot—I cannot possibly be polite, if you are not straightforward. And please be quick, because I have a lot to do."

He flushed at this gentle hectoring, but he could not still his curiosity.

"I want to know," he said slowly, "what your little idea is about me—about me—and you. Are you going to try backing out of it, now that you have her safe?"

She had not thought of it; her face showed that, and he did not need the assurance of her quiet words.

"I was afraid," he muttered, half abashed. "I thought you'd take a chance."

"I couldn't take one unless you offered it," she said.

There were thoughts behind his eyes; he seemed to waver, and she steadied her own face for fear of doing the one thing that would not move him. Now she did not pray: she had a dread of asking for herself, lest God, in punishment, should grant the prayer and let worse follow. Escape was only to be made through a door of George's opening, and she knew he would never let her through, but she looked at the clouds and waited for him to speak.

His words were heralded by guttural noises in his throat.

"I want you," he said at last, with the simplicity of a desire for bread. "And there isn't any need to wait. I'm going to town today. I'll see about it. In three weeks—"

She said nothing; she was still watching the clouds; they were like baskets overbrimming with heaped snow.

He came nearer. "I'm going to get a ring. And, after all, we needn't wait three weeks. I'll get a licence. What kind of ring?"

Zebedee's ring was hanging on a ribbon round her neck, and she put a hand to her throat and pressed the hard stones against her skin.

"I suppose one has to have a wedding ring."

"I meant—another kind," he said.

"Is it worth while for such a little time?" she asked and did not look at him.

"There's afterwards."

"Yes. There's afterwards." She might have been lingering on the words with love, but suddenly she rose and stamped a foot as though to crush them, and cried out, "I will have no ring at all! Neither one nor the other!"

"You can't get married without a ring," he said stupidly. It pleased him to see her thus: she was less distant from him.

"Very well. Marry me with one. I will not wear it afterwards."

"I don't care about that," he muttered. He was looking at her, peering in the half-blind fashion he used towards her. "Helen—I was awake half the night."

She stared at him. It would not have troubled her if he had never slept again. It was absurd of him to think she cared whether he slept or waked.

"Thinking of you—" he added, and seemed to wait for some reward.

"I am going in," was all she said.

"Not yet. That's all you ever say to me. I wish you'd have a ring."

"But I will not!"

"Something, then," he begged.

"What do such things matter?" she cried, and hated her ungraciousness as she heard it. "If it will make you happy," she conceded. "Good-bye, George. The doctor will soon be here, and there is everything to do."

"Aren't you going to let me in?"

"Oh, yes." She passed into the house and up the stairs, and she did not look back to see if he had followed.

He found himself at a loss in the big house which seemed very empty. There was not a sound in it but the ticking of the clock and, upstairs, Helen's movements, which were few and quiet. He realized that he was practically alone with her, and though he listened earnestly, he could not tell exactly where she was, and at any moment she might come slipping down the stairs before he knew she was at the head of them. The fancy pleased him; it kept him poised for her; it would be fine, he thought, to play at hide-and-seek with her, to search the old house while she ran from him, to hear the clicking of a door or an unwary step, and at last to catch her in his arms, in the dark of a winter night.

He waited, but she did not come, and, understanding that his presence in the hall might well keep her upstairs, he wandered into the kitchen.

The room was neat, but a pile of dirty plates and dishes awaited washing, and having looked at them thoughtfully, he took off his coat, and he was working in the scullery when Helen appeared. Already he had filled the scuttles and the kettles.

"Thank you very much," she said, in a kind of wonder. He was a different person now, and she was touched by the sight of this careful dealing with mop and plates, by his puckered brow and lips. He was like a child, and she did not wish to see him so. If he continued simple, she might grow fond of him, and that, she thought, would be disloyalty to Zebedee. To marry George without love, affection, friendship or respect was only to pay the price he had demanded; but to feel kindness for him, even that human kindness she could seldom refuse to any one, was to make the sacrifice less complete, to cloud, in some way, the honesty of the eyes which would have to look at Zebedee when he learnt what she had done.

"It's kind, George, but don't do it."

"I'm slow, but I can manage."

"Splendidly, but I can do it."

"You can't do everything."

Her face was pinched as she said, "I'm glad to do it."

He straightened the big back he was bending in her service. "Let me help. I'll be here to light the kitchen fire tomorrow."

"There's no need: Mrs. Samson is coming, I've promised to have her every day."

"Samson is my man."

"I know." Lines were beginning to show between her brows. "George, nobody need be told."

Again he straightened himself, but now he seemed to threaten with his bulk. "I'd feel safer if you weren't so secret."

"Can't you trust me?" she said. "How often must I ask you that?"

He had a slow way of flushing to the eyes. "I'm sorry," he said humbly, as he used his thumb nail on a plate.

She was irritated by his meekness, for now he was not childlike. She felt his thoughts circling round her in a stubborn determination to possess, even, if it must be, through his own submission, but she hated him less for that than for his looks, which, at that moment, were without definite sex. He looked neither man nor woman: his knees were slightly bent; his face was red, and his nail still scraped patiently on the plate. Since she must marry him, she would have him as masculine as he could be, so that therein she might find shelter from the shame of being yoked to him.

Her cheeks grew cold in amazement at her own thought, and her mind shrank from it. She felt that all the blood in her body was dropping to her feet, and they were heavy as she moved towards the door.

"Are you going?" he asked her.

"I must watch for the doctor."

She had the mind of a slave, she told herself, the mind of a slave, and she deserved no better than to be one.

She wrapped a grey cape about her and sat outside the garden gate. The wind was strong enough to lean against, stronger than man or anything he had made. Its freshness seemed to get beneath her skin, into her mind, to clean every part of her. Its action had a swiftness that prevented thought, and she was content to sit there till the doctor came, though the nurse had gone to bed in Christopher, and Mildred Caniper was alone. If she could see through those closed lids, she would not mind: she must know how terrible it was to sit and watch her immobility.

The postman came before the doctor and brought a letter with a foreign stamp, and for a long time she held the envelope unopened between her palms. Her body felt like a great heart beating, and she was afraid to read what Zebedee had written, but at last she split the envelope and spread the sheets, and forgot George Halkett in the scullery and Mildred Caniper in bed: she did not hear the calling of the peewits or the melancholy of the sheep; she heard Zebedee's voice, clear-cut and quick, saying perfect things in ordinary tones. He told her of the sea that sometimes seemed to change into the moor, and of the sails that swelled into the big clouds they knew; he told her that though there was never any one who could claim likeness to her, it did not matter because she never left him, and that, in spite of her continuing presence, and because he was well again, he thought he would come home by land to reach her sooner.

She spoke aloud, but her forehead was on the letter on her knee.

"No, don't, Zebedee—darling—dearest—lover. Don't come any sooner. I don't want you to have more days of knowing than you need."



CHAPTER XXIX

The days of that week were marked by little changes for the better in Mildred Caniper's condition, by little scenes with George. Helen never went on to the moor without finding him in wait for her, and always she went as to some unworthy tryst, despising herself for the appeasement she meted out to him, daring to do nothing else. Once more, she saw him as some animal that might be soothed with petting, but, thwarted, would turn fierce and do as he would with her. Her dignity and friendship kept him off; he did not know how to pass the barrier, and to lock material doors against him would have been to tempt him to force the house. She knew that in this matter cowardice was safety, but as the days crept forward, she wondered how long the weapon would serve her.

Rupert came on Saturday and brought sanity into a disordered world, and when he entered the house she caught his arm and held to it.

"Have you been as lonely as all that?" he asked.

"Not a bit lonely, but you're so nice-looking," she explained, "and so alive. And Notya is only coming alive slowly. It's like watching something being born. You're whole."

"And you're rather embarrassing."

"I want you to talk to me all the time you're here. Tell me things that have nothing to do with us. Rupert, I'm sick of us." She dropped on to a chair and whispered, "It's an enchanted house!"

"Are you the princess?"

"Yes. Be careful! I don't want Jane to know."

He glanced up the stairs. "The prince is coming soon."

She ignored that and went on: "Nurse is an ogress."

"By Jove, yes! Why couldn't they send some one who looks like a Christian?"

"I believe she'll eat me. But I shouldn't see that, and I can't bear to see her eating anything else. D'you know?"

"Rather. That kind of thing oughtn't to be allowed."

"She's very kind. She calls me 'dear' all the time, but Notya will hate her when she notices the teeth. Will you go up to her now? I have to—I want to go out for a little while. Then we can have the rest of the day to ourselves."

He lifted his eyebrows oddly. "Why not?"

"I mean I needn't go out again."

"Where are you going now?"

"Just for a walk. I must have a walk."

"Good girl. I'll look after the family."

She took her cloak from its peg and slipped through the garden. "I don't tell the truth. I'm deceitful," she said to herself, and when she saw George, she hated him.

"I've been here for hours," he said as she approached.

"There was no need to wait."

"I'm not grudging the time."

"Why speak of it then?"

"I was afraid you wouldn't come. I brought a coat for you to sit on. The ground's wet."

"I don't want to sit. I want to walk and walk into something soft—soft and oblivious."

"But sit down, just a minute. I want to show you something." His hand shook as he put something into hers and, clearing his throat, said shyly, "It's a swallow."

"A swallow?"

"A brooch."

"It's pretty."

"Let me pin it on for you."

"No, no, I can't—it's much too good for this plain frock, and I might lose it. Haven't you a case for it? There. Put it in your pocket, please. Thank you very much."

"I don't believe you like it."

"Yes, I do."

"Then let me put it on. I'd like to see you wearing it."

"Oh, if you must," she said.

He took it from its place; his fingers were slow and clumsy, his face close to hers, and with the brooch pinned to her, she hated him more than she had done when he held Miriam in his mad arms.

"I've the ring in my pocket, too," he said. "Next week—Did you hear me? Sometimes—sometimes you look deaf."

"Yes, I did hear."

She shook herself and rose, but he caught a hand. "I want to take you right away. You look so tired."

"I am not tired."

"I shall take care of you."

The limp hand stiffened. "You know, don't you, that I'm not going to leave my stepmother? You are not thinking—?"

"No, no," he said gently, but the mildness in his voice promised himself possession of her, and she snatched away her hand.

"I must have exercise. I'm going to run."

"Give me your hand again."

"There is no need."

"You'll stumble." He did not wait for her assent, and for that and for the strength of his hold she liked him, and, as she ran, and her blood quickened, she liked him better. She did not understand herself, for she had imagined horror at his nearness, but not horror pierced through with a delight that shrank. She thought there must be something vile in her, and while she ran she felt, in her desperate youth, that she was altogether worthless since she could not control her pleasure to this swift movement supported by his hand. She ran, leaping over stones and heather and, for a short time that seemed endless, her senses had their way. She was a woman, young and full of life, and the moor was wide and dark, great-bosomed, and beside her there ran a man who held her firmly and tightened, ever and again, his grasp of her slipping fingers. Soon it was no effort not to think and to feel recklessly was to escape. Their going made a wind to fan their faces; there was a smell of damp earth and dusty heather, of Halkett's tweeds and his tobacco; the wind had a faint smell of frost; there was one star in a greenish sky.

She stopped when she could go no further, and she heard his hurried breathing and her own.

"How you can run!" he said. "Like a hare! And jump!"

"No! Don't!" She could not bear his personalities: she wished she were still running, free and careless, running from the shame that now came creeping on her. "No, no!" she cried again, but this time it was to her own thoughts.

"What have I done?" he asked.

"Nothing. I was speaking to myself."

He never could be sure of her, and he searched for words while he watched the face she had turned skywards.

"Helen, you're different now."

"And you like me less."

"I always love you."

She looked at him and smiled, and very slowly shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said pleasantly. "Oh, no, George."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Perhaps it's a riddle. You can think about it."

"Ah—you—you make me want to shake you!" He gripped her shoulders and saw her firm lips loosened, a pale colour in her cheeks, but something in her look forced him to let her go.

"I can't hurt you," he said.

She smiled again, in a queer way, he thought, but she was always queer: she looked as if she knew a joke she would not tell him, and, in revenge, he had a quick impulse to remind her of his rights.

"Next week," he said, and saw the pretty colour fading.

No one could save the captive princess now. Sunday came and Rupert went; Monday came and Mildred Caniper spoke to Helen; Tuesday was Helen's birthday: she was twenty-one. No one could save her now. On Wednesday she was to meet George in the town.

She had asked Lily to stay with Mildred Caniper.

"I have some shopping to do," she said, and though her words were true, she frowned at them.

Lily came, and her skirts were blown about as she ran up the track.

"It's a bitter wind," she said. "We've had a bad winter, and we're going to have a wicked spring."

"I think we are," Helen said as she fastened on her hat.

"You'll be fighting the wind all the way into town. Need you go today?"

"I'm afraid I must," Helen said gravely.

"Well, perhaps the change will do you good," Lily said, and Helen smiled at her reflection in the mirror. "Don't hurry back."

The smile stayed on Helen's lips, and it was frozen there when, having forced her way against a wind that had no pity and no scorn, she did her shopping methodically and met George Halkett at the appointed place.

"You've come!" he said, and seized her hand. "You're late."

"I had to do some shopping," she said, putting back a blown strand of hair.

"You're tired. You should have let me drive you down." In the shadows of the doorway, his eyes were quick on every part of her. "I wish I'd made you. And you're late. Shall we—hadn't we better go upstairs?"

"There's nothing to wait for, is there?"

Their footsteps made a loud noise on the stairs, and in a few minutes Helen found herself on them again. George had her by the arm, but he loosed her when she put the ring into his hand.

"Helen—" He checked himself, accepting her decree with a patience that made her sorry for him.

"You're going to drive back with me?" His anxiety to please her controlled his eagerness: his wish to tend her was like a warm but stifling cloak, and she could not refuse him.

"They'll think we've met by chance," he said.

"Who will?"

"Any one that sees us."

"I'm not concerned with what people think."

"That's all right then. Nor am I. Will you wait here or come with me to the stable?"

"I'll wait," she said.

People with blue faces and red-rimmed eyes went past her, and there was not one of them she did not envy, for of all the people in that town, she alone was waiting for George Halkett. He came too soon, and held out a helping hand which she disdained.

"My word!" he said, "the wind is cold. Keep the rug round you."

"No, I don't like it." She pushed it off. "I can't bear the smell of it."

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's clean enough."

"I didn't think it was dirty," she explained, and a few minutes afterwards, she added, "I'm sorry I was rude, George."

"You're tired," he said again.

"Drive quickly, won't you?"

He whipped up the horse, and the wind roared behind them; they passed men and women staggering against it.

"Will there be snow?" she asked him.

He bent his ear to her, and again she shouted, "Will there be snow?"

"Feels—rather like it," he boomed back. "I never knew such a year. And they'd begun burning the heather!"

"Had they? Did you say burning heather? Then the fires will be put out. George, they'll be put out!"

He nodded, thinking this a small thing to shout about, in such a wind.

She had forgotten about the fires, but now she looked at the grey sky and hoped the snow would come. She imagined the first flake hissing on the fire, and more flakes, and more and more, until there was no smoke to veil the god, only a thick wet blanket for his burial. She had loved his moor, yet he had forsaken her; she had been afraid to hope, she had gone humbly and she had prayed, but now she need pay him no more homage, for she had nothing more to fear, and she whispered to the snow to hurry and avenge her.

When they were nearly home, George spoke again. "Are you very cold?"

"I'm warmer now."

"I'll drive you up the track."

"I'd rather get out here. Stop, George, please."

"Wait till I help you down," he said, and jumped off on the other side.

"My feet are numb," she said, looking at the arms he held for her.

"I'll catch you."

"I'm not so bad as that." She climbed down stiffly while he watched her, and in some way she felt herself more injured by the quality of his gaze than she would have been by his clasp. Without looking at him, she said good-bye and made a step or two.

"But I shall see you again."

"One—one supposes so!"

"I mean tonight."

"I—don't know."

"Leave the blind up so that I can see if you're alone."

She made no answer, and when she had run lamely up the track, she turned at the door to see her husband still standing in the road.

Lily met her in the hall and said, "Mrs. Caniper's asleep, and she's better, my dear. She seems happier, somehow. So George Halkett brought you home. A good thing, too. Come into the kitchen and get warm. I'll make some tea and toast for you. You're frozen. Here, let me take off your boots. Sit down."

"I can do it, thank you."

"But you're going to let me, just to please me."

Helen submitted and lay back. "You look nice with the firelight on you."

"Hadn't that man a rug?"

"What? Oh, yes, yes." The warmth and peace of the kitchen were almost stupefying. She shut her eyes and felt soft slippers being pushed on to her feet; the singing of the kettle became one sound with the howling of the wind, and Lily's voice dragged her from the very brim of sleep.

"Here's a slice, and the kettle's boiling. A good thing John isn't here! He says it's the water, not the kettle."

"How fussy of him!"

"But he's right."

"Always?"

"Not a bit of it."

"I'm glad of that. Would it have made much difference to you if you hadn't married him?"

"D'you think I don't care enough for him?"

"Of course I don't."

"Now look, you've made me burn the toast."

"Scrape it. I wanted to know—how much he filled of you."

"I don't know. I never thought about it. I wouldn't have been lovesick, anyway. I had my work to do."

"I expect that's how men feel. I sometimes think nothing's worth struggling for."

"Oh, but it is. I'm always fighting. I saved two lambs last week."

"That's different. I meant—for happiness. People struggle and get nothing. It's such a little life. Seventy years, perhaps. They pass—somehow."

"But if you've ever had the toothache, you know how long an hour can be. What's the matter with you?"

"I'm just thinking."

"Unhappy?"

"No."

"When will Zebedee be back?"

"In about ten days."

"Are you feeling he'll never come?"

"I'm sure he'll come."

"Well then—"

"Perhaps it's the wind," Helen said. "You're very good to me."

"Oh, I'm fond of you," Lily said.

"Are you fond enough to kiss me?" Helen asked. She wanted a touch at which she need not shudder, and surely it was fitting that some one should kiss her on her wedding-day.



CHAPTER XXX

Soon after nine o'clock, Helen bade Mildred Caniper and the nurse good-night and went downstairs with Jim close at her heels.

"We're going to sit in the kitchen, James. I'll get my sewing."

She hesitated at the window: the night was very dark, but she could see the violent swaying of the poplars, and she thought the thickening of their twigs was plain and, though it was April already, it was going to snow. She touched the tassel of the blind, but she did not pull on it, for she would not anger George with little things, and she left the window bare for his eyes and the night's.

"Keep close to me, Jim," she said as she sat and sewed, and she stroked him with a foot. She could hear no sound but the raging wind, and when the back door was opened she was startled.

"It's me," George said as he entered.

"I didn't hear you coming."

"I've been looking through the window for a long time." He went to the fireside. "Didn't you know? I hoped you'd be looking out for me, but you weren't anxious enough for that."

"Anxious?"

"Well—eager."

"Of course I wasn't. Why should I be?"

"You're my wife—and wives—"

"You know why I married you, George."

"You're married, none the less."

"I'm not disputing that."

"I suppose you despise me for—getting what I wanted."

"I only wonder if it was worth while."

"I'll make it that."

"But you won't know until your life is over, until lots of lives are over."

"I'll get what I can now."

She nodded lightly, and her coolness warmed him.

"Helen—"

"Why don't you sit down?"

"I don't know. I wish you wouldn't sew."

Without a word, she folded her work and gave it to him, and when he had put it down he knelt beside her, holding the arms of the chair so that he fenced her in.

"You don't understand, you can't understand that night's work," he said. "I want to tell you. You—you were like an angel coming down into the racket. You took away my strength. I wanted you. I forgot about Miriam. If I'd only known it, I'd been forgetting her every day when I saw you walking with the dog. You think I was just a beast, but I tell you—"

"I don't think that. I can't explain unless you give me room. Thank you. You were a beast with Miriam, not with me."

He sat stiffly on his chair and murmured, "That's just it. And now, you see—"

"Yes, I do."

"But you don't like me."

"I might."

"You shall, by God!" He seemed to smoulder.

"I hope so," she said quietly, and damped the glow.

"You'll let me come here every night and sit with you?"

"Yes."

"And Mrs. Caniper, can she hear?"

"No, she is in the front of the house."

"And Jim won't mind?"

"Oh, no, Jim won't."

"Nor you?"

"You can get the big old chair from the schoolroom and bring it here. That shall be yours."

He sat there for an hour, and while he smoked she was idle. His eyes hardly left her face, but hers were for the fire, though sometimes she looked at him, and then she saw him behind tobacco smoke, and once she smiled.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"I was thinking of the fires on the moor—the heather burning."

"What made you think of that?"

"You—behind the smoke. If the snow comes, the fires will be put out, but there will still be your smoke."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"I like to see you—behind the smoke."

"I'm glad you're pleased with something."

"I like a fair exchange," she said, and laughed at him, "but I shall offer up no more prayers."

"I don't understand this joke, but I like to see you laugh." Possession had emboldened him. "Helen, you're pretty."

"I'm sleepy. It's after ten. Good-night."

"I'll come tomorrow."

"But not on Saturday. Rupert comes home then."

"He goes on Sunday night?"

"Yes." She locked the door on him, blew out the light, and ran upstairs. She thought Mr. Pinderwell passed her with no new sorrow on his face. "It's worse for me," she said to him. "Jane, it's worse for me."

She went cautiously to her window and peeped through. She saw George standing on the lawn, and tremblingly she undressed in darkness.

The next day, Mildred Caniper called Helen to her side.

"I feel—rested," she said. Her voice had for ever lost its crispness, and she spoke with a slovenly tongue. "I don't like strangers—looking at me. And she—she—"

"I know. She shall go. Tomorrow I'll sleep with you."

Her heart lightened a little, and through the day she thought of Mildred Caniper's room as of a hermitage, but without the nurse the house was so much emptier of human life that it became peopled with the thoughts of all who had lived in it; and while Helen waited for George's coming, she felt them moving round her.

There were the thoughts of the people who had lived in the house before Mr. Pinderwell, and these were massed and indistinct, yet the more troubled; they were too old for form, too young for indifference, and they thronged about her, asking for deliverance. She could not give it, and she was jostled by a crowd that came closer than any one of flesh and blood: it got inside her brain and frightened her. The thoughts of Mr. Pinderwell were familiar, but now she could better understand his wild young despair, the pain of his lonely manhood, the madness of his old age. Yet, when she thought of him, she said again, "It's worse for me." Mr. Pinderwell had not been obliged to marry some one else, and, though he did not know it, his children lived. Nearer than his thoughts, but less insistent than the formless ones that pressed about her, begging shamelessly, were those of Mildred Caniper. Helen saw them in the dining-room where they had been made, and they were rigid under suffering, dignified, but not quite lost to humour, and because she did not know their cause, because their creator lay upstairs, dead to such activities, Helen had a horror of them that made her watch the clock for George's hour. She was less afraid of George than of these shapeless, powerful things, this accumulated evidence of what life did with its own; and until he came she talked to Jim, quickly and incessantly, careless of what she said, if words could calm her.

"Jim, Jim, Jim! I must say something, so I'll say your name, and then other things will come. I do not intend to be silly. I won't let you be silly, Helen. You mustn't spoil things. It's absurd—and wicked! And there's snow outside. It's so deep that I shan't hear him come. And I wish he'd come, Jim. Funny to wish that. Jim, I'm afraid to turn my head. It feels stiff. And I ought to go upstairs and look at Notya's fire, but I don't like the hall. That's where they all meet. And I don't know how I dare say these things aloud. I'll talk about something else. Suppose I hadn't you? What shall we have for dinner tomorrow? There's a bone for you, and the jelly for Notya, and for me—an egg, perhaps. Boiled, baked, fried, poached, scrambled, omeletted? Somehow, somehow. What shall I say next? Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, and all that kind of thing. That will take a long time. I know I sound mad, but I'm not. And this isn't me: not our me, James. Dickory, dickory, dock—But this is worse than before. I wonder why God thought of men and women—and snow—and sheep—and dogs. Dogs—" Her words stopped; she heard the little noises of the fire. She found that this was not the way in which to combat terrors. She knew how Zebedee would look if he saw her now, and she stood up slowly. The muscles in his cheek would twitch, and the queer flecks in his eyes would chase each other as he watched her anxiously and sadly. She could not let him look like that.

She walked into the middle of the room and looked about her. She opened the door and stood in the dark hall and refused the company of the thronging thoughts. Up the stairs she went, seeing nothing more alarming than poor Mr. Pinderwell, and on the landing she found the friendly children whom she loved. Jim followed her, and he seemed to share her views; he paused when she did and stood, sturdily defying the unknown; and so they went together into every room, and mended Mildred Caniper's fire, and returned freely to the kitchen.

"We've conquered that," Helen said. "We'll conquer everything. Fear is—terrible. It's ugly. I think only the beautiful can be good."

She held to the high mantelshelf and looked at the fire from between her arms. A few minutes ago, life had been some mighty and incalculable force which flung its victims where it chose, and now she found it could be tamed by so slight a thing as a human girl. She had been blinded, deafened, half stupefied, tossed in the whirlpool, and behold, with the remembrance that Zebedee believed in her, she was able to steer her course and guide her craft through shallows and over rapids with a steady hand.

"There now!" she exclaimed aloud, and turned a radiant face as Halkett entered.

For an instant, he thought it was his welcome, and his glow answered hers before both faded.

"Good-evening, George."

"Good-evening, Helen," he answered, and there was a little mockery in his tone.

He stood close to her, and the frosty air was still about him. A fine mist and a smell of peat came from his clothes as the fire warmed them. She did not look at him, and when she would have done so, his gaze weighted her eyelids so that she could not lift them; and again, as on that first occasion in the hollow, but ten times more strongly, she was conscious of his appreciation and her sex. There was peril here, and with shame she liked it, while, mentally at first, and then physically, she shrank from it. She dropped into the chair beside her, and with an artifice of which she was no mistress, she yawned, laughed in apology, and looked at him.

"I believe you were awake half the night," he grumbled. "I won't have you tired. You shouldn't have sent the nurse away." He sat down and pulled out his pipe, and filled it while he watched her. "But I'm glad she's gone," he said softly.

She did not answer. She had a gripping hand on each arm of the chair: she wanted to run away, and she hated George; she wanted to stay, and then she hated herself.

"I shan't get tired," she said weakly. "Mrs. Samson stays till six o'clock. I only look after Notya."

"And you sleep with her?"

"Yes," she said and, picking a spill of paper from the hearth, she lighted it and held it out to him. He put his hand round hers and did not let it go until his pipe was lit, and then he puffed thoughtfully for a time.

"I've never been up your stairs except when I carried her to bed," he said, and every muscle in her body contracted sharply. She flogged her mind to start her tongue on a light word.

"Not—not when you were little? Before we came here?"

He laughed. "I wouldn't go near the place. We were all scared of old Pinderwell. They used to say he walked. I was on the moor the night you came, I remember, and saw the house all lighted up, and I ran home, saying he'd set the place on fire. I was supposed to be in my bed, and I had my ears well boxed."

"Who boxed them?"

"Mrs. Biggs, of course. She has hands like flails. I—What's the matter?"

"Is she at the farm still?"

"Mrs. Biggs?"

"Yes."

"D'you want her to go?"

"I should have thought you did."

"Well—" He spoke awkwardly. "She's been there nearly all my life. You can't turn people off like that, but if you want it, she shall go."

"No, it's not my affair," she told him.

"It will be," he said sharply.

"Of course," she said in a high voice, "I should never dream of living in the same house with her, but then," she went on, and her tones loosened, there was an irritating kind of humour in them, "I don't suppose I shall ever live there at all."

She did not know why she spoke so; her wish to hurt him was hardly recognizable by herself, but when she saw him stung, she was delighted.

The colour rushed up to his eyes. "What d'you mean by that? What d'you think you're going to do?"

She raised her eyebrows, and answered lightly, "I'm sure I don't know."

He put a heavy hand on her knee. "But I do," he said, and her mouth drooped and quivered. She knew she had laid herself open to an attack she could not repel.

"He'll get me this way," she found herself almost whispering, and aloud she said, "George, let's wait and see. Tell me some more about when you were little."

Things went smoothly after that, and when she went to bed, she talked to Jane.

"We mustn't have any pauses," she said. "We can feel each other then. We must talk all the time, and, oh, Jane, I'm so fond of silence!"

That night a voice waked her from a dreamless sleep.

"Helen, are you there?"

"Yes. Do you want something?"

"I have been thinking." Her tongue seemed too thick for her mouth. "Is the dog on the landing?"

"Yes. He's always there. You haven't been afraid?"

"No. It's a big house for two women."

Helen sat up and, putting her feet into her slippers, she opened the door. Jim was sleeping in the darkness: he woke, looked up and slept again. It was a quiet night and not a door or window shook.

"I didn't say I heard anything. Go back to bed."

Helen obeyed, and she was falling softly into sleep when the voice, like a plucked wire, snatched her back.

"Helen! I want to tell you something."

"I'm listening." She stared at the corner whence the voice was struggling, and gradually the bed and Mildred's body freed themselves from the gloom.

By a supreme effort, the next words were uttered without a blur and with a loudness that chased itself about the room.

"I am to blame."

"To blame?" Helen questioned softly.

"It was my fault, not Edith's—not your mother's."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Notya dear."

"Your mother." The voice was querulous. "I was—unkind to your mother. Oh—worse than that!" The bed creaked, and a long sigh gave place to the halting speech in which the sibilants were thickened into lisping sounds.

"She was my friend. She was beautiful. You are all like her. Miriam and Rupert—" The voice dropped like a stone falling into a well without a bottom, and Helen, listening for the sound of it, seemed to hear only the echoes of Mildred Caniper's memory, coming fainter and fainter from the past where the other woman made a gleam.

"Miriam—" she began again. "I haven't seen her."

"No. Uncle Alfred has taken her away."

"Ah!" Mildred said, and there was a silence.

After a time, her voice came back, thin and vague, a ghostly voice, speaking the thoughts of a mind that had lost its vigour.

"Alfred was in love with Edith. They all were. She was so pretty and so gay. But she was not unfaithful. No. I knew that. She told me and she trusted me, but I said nothing. That's what has worried me—all the time." Heavily she sighed again, and Helen drew herself to a sitting posture in her bed. She dared not ask the questions which tramped over each other in her mind; she hardly drew a breath lest the sound should change the current of the other's thought.

"She did silly things. They vexed me. I was jealous, I suppose. Take care of Miriam. Oh—but she's gone. Edith—she made men love her, and she couldn't help it, and then one night—but it's too long to tell. Philip thought she wasn't faithful, but I knew. She wouldn't tell him. She was angry, she wouldn't say a word, but she trusted me to tell him. And you see, I—didn't. He wouldn't go and see her. If he had seen her he would have found out. And soon she died—of measles." The woman in the bed laughed softly.

"That was so foolish! And then I married him. I got w-what I wanted. But there's a verse about leanness in the soul, isn't there? That's what I had. He wanted some one to look after the children, and I looked after you—no more. The struggling hasn't been worth while."

"No." The word came from Helen like a lost puff of wind.

"And then Philip went away, and I came here. That's all. I wanted to tell somebody. Now perhaps I can have peace. I meant to tell him, too, but I was too late. That worried me. All these years—"

Leaning on her elbow, Helen looked at the narrow bed. It had some aspect of a coffin, and the strangely indifferent voice was still. She felt an intolerable pity for the woman, and the pain overcame her bewilderment and surprise, yet she knew she need not suffer, for Mildred Caniper had slipped her burden of confession and lay at rest.

Beyond the relief of tears, Helen slid into her place. The dead, distant mother was not real to her: she was like the gay shadow of a butterfly that must soon die, and Philip Caniper was no more than a name. Their fate could hardly stir her, and their personal tragedy was done; but now she thought she could interpret the thoughts which clustered in the dining-room. This was Mildred Caniper's secret, and it had been told without shame. The irony of that made her laugh silently to the shaking of her bed. She had no words with which to clothe her feelings, the sense of her own smallness, of unhappiness so much the common lot that it could almost pass unheeded. There was some comfort in the mingling of her own misery with all that had been and was to be, but she felt herself in the very presence of disintegration: the room was stirring with fragments of the life which Mildred Caniper could not hold together: mind and matter, they floated from the tired body in the corner and came between Helen and the sleep that would have kept her from thinking of the morrow, from her nightly vision of Zebedee's face changing from that of happy lover to poor, stricken man. Turning in the bed, she left him for the past of which Mildred Caniper had told her, yet that past, as parent of the present, looked anxiously and not without malice towards its grandchildren. What further tragedy would the present procreate?

Answers to that question were still trooping past Helen when dawn came through the windows, and some of them had the faces of children born to an unwilling mother. Her mind cried out in protest: she could not be held responsible; and because she felt the pull of future generations that might blame her, she released the past from any responsibility towards herself. No, she would not be held responsible: she had bought Miriam, and the price must be paid: she and Miriam and all mankind were bound by shackles forged unskilfully long ago, and the moor, understanding them, had warned her. She could remember no day when the moor had not foretold her suffering.



CHAPTER XXXI

A person less simple than Helen would have readjusted her conception of herself, her character and circumstances, in the light of her new knowledge; but with the passionate assertion that she could not be held altogether responsible for what her own children might have to suffer, Helen had made her final personal comment. For a day, her thoughts hovered about the distant drama of which Mildred Caniper was the memento, like a dusty programme found when the play itself is half forgotten, and Helen's love grew with her added pity; but more urgent matters were knocking at her mind, and every morning, when she woke, two facts had forced an entrance. She was nearer to Zebedee by a night, and only the daylight separated her from George and what he might demand and, outside, the moor was covered with thick snow, as cold as her own mind.

A great fire burned in Mildred Caniper's room, another in the kitchen; the only buds on the poplars were frozen white ones, and the whiteness of the lawn was pitted with Halkett's footsteps. Since the first day of snow he had climbed the garden wall close to the kitchen door so that he should not make another trail, but the original one still gaped there, and Helen wished more snow would fall and hide the tracks. She saw them every morning when she went into her own room to dress, and they were deep and black, like open mouths begging the clouds for food.

One day, John, looking from the kitchen window, asked who had been tramping about the garden.

"Doesn't it look ugly?" Helen said. "I can't bear snow when it's blotched with black. Is there going to be more of it?"

"I think so."

"Are your lambs all right?"

"We haven't lost one. Lily's a wonder with them. We've a nursery in our kitchen. Come and see it." He went out, and she heard him on the crisp snow.

"Now he'll mix the trail," she thought happily. "And I might have done it myself. I think I'm growing stupid. But it will be John and George when I get up in the morning: that's better than George and me."

John came back and spoke gravely. "I find those footsteps go right across the moor towards Halkett's Farm."

"Of course! George made them."

"Oh, you knew?"

"Yes. I couldn't imagine Jim had done it, could I?"

"What did he come for?"

"He sat by the fire and smoked."

"You'd better not encourage him."

"I don't."

"Be careful!—What are you laughing at?"

"That old story of the kiss!"

"It makes me mad."

"He doesn't try to kiss me, John. I shouldn't be horrified if he did. You needn't be afraid for me."

"All right. It's your affair. Want any wood chopped?"

"Rupert did a stack for me."

"This is pretty dull for you, isn't it? When does—"

She interrupted. "At the end of next week, I think." She was somewhat tired of answering the question.

That night, as she sat with George, he said, "When we're like this, I wish you'd wear your wedding-ring."

"I said I wouldn't."

"It couldn't do any harm."

"It could—to me."

"You talk as if it's dirt," he said.

"Oh, no, I know it's gold! Let's keep our bargains and talk of something else. Tell me what you have been doing today."

His face reddened to a colour that obscured his comeliness. "You can't get round me like that."

"What do you mean?" She lifted her head so that he saw her round white throat. "Why should I condescend to get round you, as you call it?"

"That's it!" he shouted angrily. "That's the word!" He rose and knocked his pipe against the stove. "You're too damned free with your condescension, and I'm sick of it." He left the kitchen angrily, and two minutes later she heard the distant banging of the garden door.

She wanted to run after him, for she was afraid of the impulses of his anger. She felt a dreadful need to conciliate, for no other reason than his body's greater strength, but she let him go, and though for several days she did not see him, she had no sense of liberty. He would come back, she knew, and she found herself planning unworthy little shifts, arranging how she would manage him if he did this or that, losing her birthright of belief that man and woman could meet and traffic honestly together. They could not do it, she found, when either used base weapons: she, her guile, or he, his strength; but if he used his strength, how could she save herself from using guile? She had to use it, and she clung fiercely to it, though she knew that, at last, it would be wrested from her.

* * * * *

In these days of his absence, there were hours when she wandered ceaselessly through the house, urged by the pride which refused allegiance to this man, tortured by her love for Zebedee and the pain she had to give him, hunted by the thought that George was making for himself a place in the circle where she kept her pensioners. Each time that he looked at her with longing, though she shrank, she gave her ready pity, and when he walked away into the night, her heart went after him unwillingly. Worse than all, she knew she would not always see him as a pensioner. Far off and indistinct, like a gallows seen on a distant hill, she spied the day when she might own a kind of need of him; she had to love those who loved her enough, and his strength, the very limits of his mind, would some day hold her. But she would not let these thoughts properly take shape: they were vague menaces, and they chased her through Mr. Pinderwell's sparsely-furnished rooms. She was glad that Zebedee had never been a pensioner; he had always given more than he had asked. His had not been an attitude of pleading, and she could not remember once seeing an appeal in his eyes. They had always been quick on her face and busy with herself, and her pride in him was mixed with anger that he had not bound her to him by his need. He would manage without her very well, she thought, and hardened herself a little; but hard or soft, the result of her fierce thinking was the same. She had the picture of Miriam like a broken flower, lying limp and crumpled on the floor, and she believed she had done well in selling herself to save that beauty. It was the only thing to do, and Zebedee would know. These words she repeated many times.

But she went beyond that conclusion on her own path. She had married George, and that was ugly, but life had to be lived and it must be beautiful; it could not be so long that she should fail to make it beautiful: fifty years, perhaps. She beat her hands together. She could surely make it beautiful for fifty years.

But at night, when she waited for George, she trembled, for she knew that her determination meant ultimate surrender.

He came on the fourth night. She gave him half a smile, and with a thin foot she pushed his chair into its place, but he did not sit down. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, his head thrust forward, and having glanced at him in that somewhat sulky pose, she was shaken by inward laughter. Men and women, she reflected, were such foolish things: they troubled over the little matters of a day, a year, or a decade, and could not see how small a mark their happiness or sorrow made in the history of a world that went on marching.

She bent over her sewing while she thought, and she might have forgotten his presence if a movement had not blocked the light.

"George, please, I can't see."

"I beg your pardon."

"I wish you would sit down. It isn't comfortable like this."

"All right." He sank down heavily and sighed.

She lifted her head quickly and showed him her puckered face. "Are you still so cross?"

"I—don't know. I've been miserable enough," he said, but he had to smile on her.

She was astonished that he should have no difficulty in speaking of himself, and she looked at him in this surprised consideration before she tempted him to say more.

"Why?" she asked.

"You wouldn't understand."

"I might."

"How much I wanted you."

She tapped her thimble against her teeth. "It's so absurd," she said softly.

"Eh?"

She hated him to say that, and she frowned a little as he asked, "Why is it absurd?"

"Because you don't know me at all."

"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I—want you." He turned sharply towards her. "I was half drunk that night."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about it."

He added abruptly, "I've had nothing since."

Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again.

"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she nodded her applause, while he, appeased and daring, asked her, "Well, did you miss me?"

"Yes. A little."

"Are you glad I'm here?"

"I think so."

"When will you be sure?"

"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough."

"God knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so damned superior."

"I'm afraid that's not my fault!"

He swore under his breath. "At it again!"

"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good things for her—for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it."

They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues clicking in distress. She wondered if he were ever going to speak.

"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over her.

"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he kissed her mouth.

She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too humble under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been. He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a long time she cried quietly in her chair.



CHAPTER XXXII

Snow was falling when Zebedee at last drove up the road, and from the window of Mildred Caniper's bedroom Helen watched his huddled figure and the striving horse. She saw him look for the obliterated track and then turn towards the shelter of Brent Farm.

"Is he coming?" Mildred asked. She was childishly interested in his return.

"Yes. He has gone to put the horse up at the farm."

"He will be cold."

"Yes." Helen was cold, too.

"It is a dreadful day for driving."

"I don't think he minds that," she said in a dead voice.

"No. You had better go downstairs."

"When I see him starting back. He'll have to talk to Lily. No, he's coming now."

She stood at the window while she slowly counted twenty, and then she warmed her hands before she went.

She was irritated by the memory of him running across the road with his hands in his pockets, his head butting against the storm, his eager feet sinking into the snow and dragging themselves out again. She had a crazy wish that he would fall. Why could he not walk? she asked herself. It was absurd to be in such a hurry. There was plenty of time, more than enough, if he but knew it! She laughed, and hated the false, cruel sound, and looked round the hall to see if there were any one to hear; but in the snow, as she opened the gate to him, there was a moment in which she knew nothing but joy. He had come back, he was close to her, and evil had passed away.

"Oh, my darling—" he said. "Let me get off my coat!"

He took her hands, and unsmilingly he scanned her, from her smooth hair to her mouth, from her hands to her feet.

"What is it?" he asked.

She gave him her clear regard. "All the things that have mattered most to me have been comings and goings through this gate and the garden door."

"Well, dearest one—"

"You've come again."

"And I shall come tomorrow."

"Will you?" She closed her eyelids on what he might see, and he kissed her between the eyes. "I have stayed away too long," he said.

"Yes. I want to talk to you. Come and see Notya first."

"Things have been happening, Daniel tells me."

"Oh, yes, they have."

"And if your letters had shown me your face, I shouldn't have stayed away another day."

"Isn't it so nice, Zebedee?"

"It's lovelier than it ever was, but there's a line here, and here, and here. And your eyes—"

Again she shut them, but she held up her face. "I want you to kiss my mouth."

"Helen," he said, when he had slowly done her bidding, "let us sit on the stairs and think about each other. Yes, there's room for Jim, but, oh, my blessed one, he ought to have a bath. No, you can stay down there, my boy. Are you comfortable, little heart? Let me look at you again. You are just like a pale flower in a wood. Here, in the darkness, there might be trees and you gleaming up, a flower—"

She dropped her forehead to his knees. "I wish—I were—that flower."

She felt his body tighten. "What has happened?"

"I'll tell you soon."

"No, now."

"When you have seen Notya. She might notice if we looked—queer."

"Then let us go to her at once."

* * * * *

Mildred Caniper cut short the interview, saying, "Take him away, Helen. I'm tired. I'm always tired now."

"Come into Jane," Helen said when they were on the landing. "No one will disturb us there. Let Jim come, too."

"He isn't fit to be in your bedroom, dear. Neither am I. And how like you it is!"

"It's cold," she said. Through the window she saw that the new snow had covered George's tracks. "Cold—cold."

He put his arms round her. "I'm back again, and I can only believe it when I'm holding you. Now tell me what's the matter."

"Shall I? Shall I? Don't hold me, or I can't. It's—oh, you have to know. I'm married, Zebedee."

Plainly he did not think her sane. "This can't be true," he said in a voice that seemed to drop from a great height.

"Yes, it's true. I can show you the thing—the paper. Here it is. Do you want to read it? Oh, yes, it's true."

"But it can't be! I don't understand! I don't understand it. Who—For God's sake, tell me the whole tale."

She told it quickly, in dull tones, and as she watched his face she saw a sickly grey colour invade his tan.

"Don't, don't look like that!" she cried.

"Are you quite sure you're married?" he asked in his new voice. "Let me look at this thing."

Outside, the snow fell thicker, darkening the room, and as she took a step nearer, she saw the muscles twitching in his cheeks. He laid the paper on her dressing-table.

"May his soul rot!" he whispered. He did not look at her. Darkness and distance lay between them, but fearfully she crept up to him and touched his arm.

"Zebedee—"

He turned swiftly, and his face made her shrink back.

"You—you dare to tell me this! And you said you loved me. I thought you loved me."

"I did. I do," she moaned, and her hands fluttered. "Zebedee," she begged.

"Oh—did you think I was going to wish you happiness? I'd rather see you dead. I could have gone on loving you if you were dead, believing you had loved me."

"And do you think I want to be alive?" she asked him, and slipped to her knees beside the bed. "I didn't want to die until just now. All the time, I said, Zebedee will understand. He'll know I did my best. He'll be so sorry for me—"

"So sorry for you that he couldn't think about himself! Sorry for you—yes! But can't you see what you have done for me? You never thought of that! It's like a woman. If you'd killed me—but you have killed me. And you did it lightly. You let me come here, you gave me your mouth to kiss, and then you tell me this! This! Oh, it's nothing! You've married some one else! You couldn't help it! Ah—!" He shook with a rage that terrified her, and having held out disregarded arms to him, she let her trembling mouth droop shapelessly, and made no effort to control her heavy tears, the sobs rushing up and out with ugly, tortured sounds. She spoke between them.

"I never thought you would be angry. But I dreamt about you angry. Oh"—she spoke now only to herself—"he doesn't understand. If I hadn't loved him truly, I needn't have kept my word, but I had to be honest, or I wouldn't have been worthy." She dropped her face against the bed and mumbled there. "Nothing matters, then. Not even being honest. I—I—Oh! Angry—Zebedee darling, I can't bear it. Tell me you won't be angry any more."

"Dearest—" He sat on the bed and pulled her wet face to his knee. "Dearest—"

She took his hands and pressed them against her eyes. "Forgive me, Zebedee."

"I can't forgive you. I can only love you. For ever and ever—I want to think, Helen."

"You're shaking so."

"And you are shivering. Come downstairs beside a fire."

"No; we are safer here." Her arms went round him, beneath his coat, and she leaned her head against his breast. "I wish we could go to sleep and never wake."

"I ought never to have left you."

She looked up. "Zebedee, he hasn't worried me. He kissed me once. That's all. That's why I made you kiss my mouth."

"He shall never worry you. I'm going to see him now, and I shall come back soon. Let me go, sweetheart."

"No, I can't let you go. It isn't that I'm afraid for you. I—I don't mind if you hurt each other, but if you killed him—if he killed you—! But you won't do that. You'll just say dreadful things, and then he'll come to me and take me all. Don't you see? He could. He would. In my own way, I can—I can keep him off, but if you went to him and claimed me—No, Zebedee, there would be no hope for me."

"I'll shoot him, if you like, without giving him a chance. The man ought to be shot. He takes advantage of his own beastliness—" He broke off. "If I talk about it I shall choke."

"But he doesn't know about you."

"You didn't tell him that?"

"I couldn't. I couldn't beg. I didn't want to say your name to him, to bring you into it."

"Yes, I was left out of your calculations pretty thoroughly."

"Zebedee—!"

"Ah, but you expect me to take this very calmly. You keep your promise to a drunken brute, but what of one to me?"

"There wasn't one between us two. We just belonged, as we do now and always shall. You're me and I am you. When I was thinking of myself, I was thinking of you, too. And all the time I thought you'd understand."

"I do—begin to understand. But what about Miriam? Little fool, little fool! Does she know what she's done?"

"No one knows but you. You see, she fainted. I always thought she'd come between us, but what queer things God does!"

His voice rose suddenly, saying, "Helen, it's unbearable. But you shall not stay here. I shall take you away."

"There's Notya."

"Yes."

"Do you mean—Is she going to die?"

"I don't know. She may not live for long. And if she dies, you shall come away with me. We can go together anywhere in the world. There's no morality and no sense and no justice in such a sacrifice."

"Oh," she sighed, "what peace, if I could go with you!"

"You shall go with me."

She felt his heart ticking away the seconds. "But I can't," she said softly. "You see, I've married him."

"Great God—!"

"I know. But I can't help it. I knew what I was doing. And he needs me."

"Ah! If he's going to need you—And again, what of my need of you?"

"You're a better man than he is."

He pushed her from him and went to the window, and she dared not ask him for his thoughts. Perhaps he had none: perhaps, in the waste of snow from which the black trunks of trees stood up, he saw a likeness to his life.

He turned to ask, "How often does that beast get washed?"

She looked at him vaguely. "Who?"

"That dog."

"Oh—once a fortnight."

"Who does it?"

"John or I."

"You let him sleep with you?"

"Outside my door."

"I think he ought to be inside. I'm going over to see John. You can't live here alone. And, Helen, I've not given up my right to you. You shall come to me when Mrs. Caniper sets you free."

She was standing now, and she answered through stiff lips, "You mustn't hope for that. You know I told you long ago the kind of woman I am."

"And you can't change yourself for my sake?"

She moved uneasily. "I would, so gladly, if I could," she said, and he shook his head as though he did not believe her.

"But I will not have you and John trying to arrange my life. I choose to be alone. If you interfere—" His look reproached her. "I'm sorry, Zebedee, but I'm suffering, too, and I know best about George, about myself. After all"—her voice rose and broke—"after all, I've married him! Oh, what a fuss, what a fuss! We make too much of it. We have to bear it. We are not willing to bear anything. Other women, other men, have lost what they loved best. We want too much. We were not meant for happiness."

His hand was on the door, but he came back and stood close to her. "Do you think you have been talking to a stone? What do you expect of me? I"—he held his head—"I am trying to keep sane. To you, this may be a small thing among greater ones, but to me—it's the only one."

"To me, too. But if I made a mistake in promising, I should make another in running away now. One has to do one's best."

"And this is a woman's best!" he said in a voice she did not know.

"Is that so bad?" She was looking at a stranger: she was in an empty world, a black, wild place, and in it she could not find Zebedee.

"There is no logic in it," she heard him say, and she was in her room once more, holding to the bed-rail, standing near this haggard travesty of her man.

"Oh! What have I done to you?" she cried out.

He followed his own thought. "If your sense of duty is greater towards him than towards me, why don't you go to him and give him all he wants?"

"He has not asked for it."

"And I do. If he has no rights, remember mine; but if he has them—"

"Yes, it may come to that," she said, and he saw her lined, white face.

"No, no, Helen! Not for my sake this time, but for yours! No! I didn't mean it. Believe me, I could be glad if you were happy."

"I shan't be happy without you, but if I can't have you, why shouldn't I do my best for him?"

He looked at the floor and said, "Helen, I can't let him touch you." He looked up. "Have you thought of everything?"

"There have been days and days to think in."

"My dear, it isn't possible! To give you into his hands!"

"I shall keep out of them if I can, and no one else can do it for me. Remember that, or you will push me into them. But I'm trying to make my body a little thing. It's only a body, after all. Zebedee, will you let me sit on your knee? Just this once more. Oh, how your arms know how to hold me! I hope—I hope you'll never have to marry any one for Daniel's sake."

He rested his cheek on hers. "Daniel will have to look after himself. Men don't hurt the people they love best for the sake of some one else. That's a woman's trick."

"You never talked like this before."

"Because, you see, no woman had ever hurt me so much."

"And now she has."

"Oh, yes, she has."

"And you love me less?"

"Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for myself."

"I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting me."

"And you won't feel me?"

"You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come between. George can't."

"But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and down the room. "Had you thought of that?"

She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?"

"You know I did."

"And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone—just slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful."

"In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I went away."

"Our house?"

"Our square house—with the trees."

She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly through those thoughts.

"Zebedee, I want to tell you something."

"Go on, dear."

"I want to tell you—I—He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'"

"I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have."

"Oughtn't I to?"

"Oh, my darling, God only knows. Don't ask me. To me there seems only one thing to do—to smite him in the mouth—and you whom I worship have tied my hands. And I sit here! What do you think is happening to me inside? I'm mad! I can promise nothing. I need time to think. Helen, if you would hate him always, I could bear it better. But you won't, you'll grow fond of him—and I suppose I should be glad; but I can't stand that." He put her down roughly and stood over her. "I can't endure this any longer," he said under his breath, and went.

Then she realized what she had done to him, and with how much gentleness he had used her. She ran after him and called from the stairhead:

"Zebedee! Wait for me. Kiss me once more. I'll never ask again. It isn't easy for me, either, Zebedee."

He stood, helpless, enraged at destiny, aware that any weapon he might lift in her defence would fall on her and wound her. He could do nothing but swear his lasting love, his ready service.



CHAPTER XXXIII

She thought Zebedee would come to her on the next day, or the next, but she watched in vain for him. Though she had sent him from her, she longed for him to be back, and at night, when George entered the kitchen, she hardly looked up to welcome him. Her mind was more concerned with Zebedee's absence than with George's presence, but in her white face and tired eyes he fancied resentment for the kiss that still burned on his own mouth.

"You haven't much to say," he told her, after an hour of silence. He did not know if he most hated or adored the smooth head turned sideways, the small ear and the fine eyebrow, the aloofness that kept him off and drew him on; but he knew he was the victim of a glorious kind of torment of which she was the pain and the delight.

"I have been thinking," she explained.

"Then why don't you tell me what you think about?"

"Would you be interested?" She smiled at the thought of telling him with what anxiety she looked for Zebedee, with what anger she blamed him for neglect, with what increase she loved him.

"Yes, I would. Now you're laughing. D'you think it funny? D'you think I can't read or write, or understand the way you speak?"

"George," she said, "I wish you wouldn't get so cross. I don't think any of those things."

"Never think about me at all, I suppose. Not worth it."

She answered slowly, "Yes, you are," and he grunted a mockery of thanks.

It was some time before he threw out two words of accusation. "You're different."

"Different?"

"That's what I said. You never answer straight."

"Don't I?"

"There you are again!"

"What do you want me to say? Shall I ask you how I'm different? Well, I've asked, George. Won't you answer?"

"I can't. I can't explain. But a few nights back—well—all tonight you've been sitting as if I wasn't here. I don't know why I stand it. Look here! You married me."

"So you are always telling me; but no one can buy the things you want."

"I'll get them somehow." He used the tones that made her shrink, but tonight she was unmoved, and he saw that her womanhood was crushed by the heaviness of her fatigue, and she was no more than a human being who needed rest.

"I think you ought to go to bed," he said. "I'm going. Good-night." He kissed her hand, but he did not let it fall. "You're not to look so white tomorrow night," he said.

She did not know why she went to the kitchen door and stood by it while he climbed the wall and dropped to the crisp snow on the further side. He called out another low good-night and had her answer before she heard his boots crunching the frozen crust. No stars and no moon shone on the white garden, and to her it was like a place of death. The deep black of the trees against the wall made a mourning border, and the poplars lifted their heads in questioning of fate, but they had no leaves to make the question audible, and no wind stirred their branches. Everything was silent; it seemed as if everything had died, and Helen was envious of the dead. She wished she might curl herself up at a poplar's foot and sleep there until the frost tightened on her heart and stopped its beating.

"It is so hard," she said aloud, and shut the door and locked it with limp hands.

The kitchen's warmth gave back her sanity and humour, and she laughed as she sat before the fire again, but when she spoke to Jim, it was in whispers, because of the emptiness of the old house.

"We shall manage if only we can see Zebedee sometimes. Other women have worse things to bear. And George likes me. I can't help liking people when they like me. And there'll be Zebedee sometimes. We'll try to keep things beautiful, and we'll be strong and very courageous, and now we'll go to bed."

The next morning Zebedee appeared, and in the hall of their many greetings, she slipped her hand into his.

"What have you been doing, Zebedee?"

"Working."

"Is that all?"

He laughed, and asked, "Isn't that enough?"

"No; not enough to keep you from me. I thought you would come yesterday and the day before."

He looked at her with an astonishment that was near scorn, for she had driven him from her and now reproached him when he did not run back. She put her hand on his and looked at him with shadowless grey eyes, and showed him a mouth that tempted, as she had done before she married this other man to whom she was determined to be faithful. His thoughts were momentarily bitter, but his words were gentle.

"I told you I wanted time to think." He pressed her hand and gave it back to her. "And I have thought, and, since you are what you are, I see, at present, no other way but yours."

"Oh." She was daunted by his formality.

"Shall I go up to Mrs. Caniper?"

"Yes," she said, puzzled. "But aren't you cold? Come into the kitchen and you shall have some coffee. I had it ready in case you came. Your hands—your cheeks—" She touched him lightly and led him to the kitchen fire.

"I think we shall have more snow," he said, and his manner was snow against her heart.

"Do you?" she said politely, but her anger dropped away as she saw his face more clearly and knew he had not slept. She knew, too, that his mind was as firmly fixed as hers, and she felt as if the whole world were sliding from her, for this was not her lover: this was some ascetic who had not yet forgotten his desires. He looked haggard, fierce with renunciation and restraint, and she cried out, "Zebedee, darling, don't look like that!"

He laughed a little, moved, and passed his hands over his face. "No," he said sensibly.

He killed the words she had ready for him: she felt them fall, dead things, into her throat, and hang helplessly in her breast. She handed him the cup, and while he drank she stood beside the table and watched him with despair and indignation. She had not imagined him thus changed: she had expected the old adoring looks, the loving words, everything but his caresses and his claims, and he treated her as though she were no more to him than any other woman. She knew him to be just and honest, but she thought him cruel and, aghast at the prospect of endless days wherein he would not smile at her nor praise her, she doubted her ability to live without him. She caught her breath in fear that his habit of indifference would change to indifference indeed; and without shame, she confessed that she would rather have him suffering through love of her than living happily through lack of it.

Mechanically, she moved after him up the stairs, played her part, and followed him down again; but when next he came, she had stiffened in emulation of him, and they talked together like people who had known each other for many years, but never known each other well.

Once he trespassed, but that was not to please himself.

"If you need me, you'll still use me?" he said hurriedly, and she answered, "Yes, of course."

He added, "I can't keep it from Daniel for ever."

"No. It need not be a secret now, except from Notya. And if she lives—"

"She may live for a long time if she has no shock."

"Ah, then," Helen said calmly, "she must not know."

He found her more beautiful than she had been, for now her serenity was by conquest, not by nature, and her head was carried with a freer grace. It might have been the freedom of one who had gained through loss and had the less weight to carry, but he tortured himself with wondering what fuller knowledge had given her maturer grace. Of this he gave no sign, and the attitude he maintained had its merciful result on Helen, for if he pretended not to need her, she had a nightly visitor who told her dumbly of his longing. Love bred liking, as she had prophesied, and, because life was lonely, she came to listen for his step. She was born to minister to people, and the more securely Zebedee shut her out, the more she was inclined to slip into the place that George had ready for her. And with George the spring was in conspiracy. The thaw came in a night, and the next morning's sun began its work of changing a white country into one of wet and glistening green. Snow lingered and grew dirty in the hollows, and became marked with the tiny feet of sheep, but elsewhere the brilliance of the moor was like a cry. It was spring shouting its release from bonds. Buds leapt on the trees, the melted snow flooded the streams, tributary ones bubbled and tinkled in unexpected places.

"Now," Helen said, leaning from the window of Mildred Caniper's room, "you can't help getting well. Oh, how it smells and looks and feels! When the ground is drier, you shall go for a walk, but you must practise up here first. Then John shall carry you downstairs."

But Mildred Caniper did not want to be energetic: she sat by the fire in a cushioned wicker chair, and when Helen looked at the lax figure and the loosened lines of the face she recognized the woman who had made confession to relieve a mind that had finished with all struggling. It was not the real Mildred Caniper who had told that story in the night; it was the one who, weakened by illness, was content to sit with folded hands by the fireside.

She dimmed the sun for Helen and robbed the spring of hope. This glory would not last: colours would fade and flowers die, and so human life itself would slip into a mingling of light and shadow, a pale confluence of the two by which a man could see to dig a grave.

Helen leaned out again, trying to recover the sense of youth, of boundless possibilities of happiness that should have been her sure possession.

"Are you looking for Zebedee?" Mildred asked. "He doesn't come so often."

"You don't need him. And he is busy. He isn't likely to come today."

Yet she wished ardently that he might, for though he would have no tenderness to give her, he would revivify her by the vigour of his being: she would see a man who had refused to let one misfortune cripple him, and as though he had divined her need, he came.

"I had to go to Halkett's Farm," he explained.

"Who's ill there?" she asked sharply.

"The housekeeper."

"I hadn't heard. Is she very ill?"

"She may be."

"Then I hope she'll die," she said in a low voice.

"My dear!" He was startled into the words, and they made her laugh openly for joy of knowing they were ready on his tongue. Lightly she swayed towards him, but he held her off.

"No, no, my heart." He turned deliberately from her. "Why do you wish that?"

"Because of Miriam. She ought to die."

"I'm afraid she won't. She's pretty tough."

"Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like."

He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel.

"There's a servant there who seems capable enough."

"I wonder why George didn't tell me."

"She was all right yesterday."

"You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too."

"There isn't any need."

"But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now."

She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made me feel clean again. Notya—oh—!" She shuddered. "She looks like some fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and everything was over-ripe."

"You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff—philosophy, for instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"—he was at the gate and he looked back at her—"you are rather like a blade yourself."

He knew the curing properties of praise.



CHAPTER XXXIV

When evening came, the blue colour of the sky had changed to one that was a memory of the earth's new green. Helen went through the garden to the moor and sat there on a grey rock out of which her own grey figure might have been carved. She watched the stars blink forth and stare; she saw the gradual darkening of the world, and then Halkett's moving shape came towards her. Out here, he was in his proper place: the kitchen made him clumsy, but wide places set him off, and she felt a kind of pride in his quickness and his strength.

"George," she said softly as he would have passed her, and he swung round and bent and took her in his arms, without hesitation or mistake.

"Were you waiting for me?" he whispered, and felt her nod against his coat. She freed herself very gently. "Shall we stay out here?" he said.

"No. I have left Notya long enough."

"What made you wait for me?"

"I—don't know," she said. She had not asked herself the question, and now the unspoken answer shocked her with its significance. She had gone to wait for him without any thought. It might have been the night that drew her out, but she knew it was not that. Once before, she had called herself a slave, and so she labelled herself again, but now she did it tremulously, without fierceness, aware that it was her own nature to which she was chiefly bound.

"Are you going to wait for me every night?" she heard him say. "Give me your hand, Helen. It is so small. Will you go over the wall or through the door? I'd like to lift you over."

"No. I want to go through the garden. There are primroses there. Big ones, like stars."

"It's you that are a star."

"I think they liked the snow. And the poplars are all buds. I wish I could sit in the tree-tops and look right across the moor."

"And wait for me. And when I came I'd hold my arms out and you'd jump into them."

"If I didn't fly away."

"Ay, I expect you would do that."

They did not speak again until they reached the house, and when she had lighted the kitchen lamp she saw him looking moodily into the fire.

"Is Mrs. Biggs better?" she asked smoothly.

"What do you know about her?"

"I heard she was ill."

"Who told you?"

"Dr. Mackenzie."

"Oh, he's been again, has he?"

"Yes." Her voice had a ring in it. "And he will come tomorrow."

"And the next day, I suppose, and the next. I should have thought he'd spare that old nag of his; but no, up he comes, and I want to know why."