She did not answer immediately because she feared to betray the indignation that moved in her like a living thing. She found her sewing and signed to him to put her chair into its place, and when she had stitched steadily for a time she said in pleasant tones, "George, you are like a bad person in a book."

"I'm not up to this kind of talk. You told me yourself that Mrs. Caniper hardly needs a doctor. What does he come for, then? Is it for you?"

"No, it is not."

"Do you like the man?"

She opened her lips and shut them several times before she spoke. "I'm very fond of him—and of Daniel."

"Oh, leave Daniel alone. No woman would look at him."

She gave him a considering gaze for which he could have struck her, because it put him further from her than he had ever been.

"It's no good staring at me like that. I've seen you with him before now."

"Everybody on the moor must have seen me with him."

"Yes, and walking pretty close. I remember that."

"Very likely you will see me walking with him again."

"No, by God!"

"Oh," she said, wearily, "how often you call on God's name."

"No wife of mine—"

She laughed. "You talk like Bluebeard. How many wives have you?"

"I've none," he cried in an extremity of bitterness. "But I'll have one yet, and I'll keep her fast!"

She lifted her head in the haughty way he dreaded. "I will not endure suspicions," she said clearly, but she flushed at her own words, for she remembered that she had been willing to give Zebedee the lesser tokens of her love, and it was only by his sternness that she could look George in the eyes. Zebedee would have taken her boldly and completely, believing his action justified, but he would have no little secret dealings, and she was abashed by the realization of her willingness to deceive. She was the nearer to George by that discovery, and the one shame made her readier to suffer more.

"It's because I want you," he said, shading his eyes; and for the first time she had no resentment for his desires.

"Oh, George, don't you think you had better go home?" she said.

"Why?" he asked her.

"Because—because I want to read."

"Well, I can watch you."

"And you won't think it rude?"

He shook his head. There was a rare joy in sitting within reach of her and honouring her with his restraint.

Her slim feet were crossed on the dog's back, and she hardly stirred except to turn a page: the firelight threw colours on her dress, behind her there was a dark dresser where china gleamed, and sitting there, she made a little picture of home for a man who could remember none but hired women in his house.

"I wish you'd talk to me," he said, and at once she shut her book with a charming air of willingness.

"Do you know what you've been reading about?" he dared to ask her slyly, for surely she had been conscious of his thoughts of her.

She would not be fluttered. "Yes. Shall I tell you?"

"No," he said.

Her voice was influenced by the quick beating of her heart.

"Do you never read anything?"

"I gave it up long ago."

"Why? What did you do at night before you—"

"Before I married you? I used to smoke and wish it was time to go to bed, and look at the newspaper sometimes."

"That must have been very dull."

"I used to watch the clock," he said. He leaned towards her and spoke quickly, softly. "And I watch it still! From waking till dusk I watch it and think of you, sitting and waiting for me. Oh, what's the good of talking to me of books? You're here—and you're my wife, and I'll talk to you of nothing but yourself." He knelt, and his hands were on her waist. "Yourself—my beauty—my little saint—your little hands and feet—your cheeks I want to kiss—your hair—" He drew her to his breast and whispered, "How long is it—your hair?"

There was no resistance in her, and her neck could not hold up the head that drooped over his shoulder when he kissed her ear and spoke in it.

"Helen—Helen—I love you. Tell me you love me. You've got to kiss me—Yes—"

She answered in a quiet voice, but she stopped for breath between the words. "I think—there's some one—in the hall. It must be John."

Reluctantly he loosed her, and she left him quickly for the dark passage which covered and yet cooled her as she called out, "John! Is that you?"

"Both of us," Rupert answered.

"But it's Friday."

"Yes. Won't you let me have a whole holiday tomorrow?"

She looked back into the kitchen and saw George prepared to meet her brothers. Never before had she seen him with so fine a manner, and, smiling at him, she felt like a conspirator, leagued with this man who was liberated by possession of her, against the two who would feel horror when they learnt she was possessed.

John's jaw tightened as he saw George and nodded to him, but Rupert's greeting had its usual friendliness.

"Hullo, here's George!" They shook hands. "I've not seen you for months. What's the weather going to be tomorrow? It's starlight tonight."

"It'll be fine, I think."

"That's good. Helen, you've hidden my slippers again, and I told you not to. What a fiend for tidiness you are!"

"I couldn't leave them in the dust." She was half enjoying her self-consciousness. "They're in the cupboard."

"Find them, there's a dear."

She brought the slippers and went back to her chair. The three men seemed to fill the kitchen. John was silent and, leaning against the table, he filled his pipe and looked up sometimes as the others talked. Rupert, slim against Halkett's bulk, alert and straight, was thinking faster than he spoke, and while he reminded George of this and that, how they had gone ratting once together, how George had let him try a colt that he was breaking, Helen knew there were subtle questions in his brain, but if George suspected them, he gave no sign. He was at his ease, for with men he had neither diffidence nor surliness, and Helen remembered that she had hardly seen him except in the presence of Miriam or herself, two women who, in different ways, had teased him into sulkiness.

Her heart lightened and, when he chanced to look at her, she smiled again. A few seconds later, Rupert followed Helen's glance and learnt what had caused the slight confusion of George's speech. She was looking at him with an absorbed and hopeful interest. She was like a child attracted by some new and changeful thing, and her beauty had an animation it often lacked.

"Can't we all sit down?" Rupert said. He promised himself a pleasant evening of speculation.

John handed his tobacco pouch to George and, having exchanged a few remarks about the frost, the snow, the lambing season, they seemed to consider that courtesy's demands had been fulfilled; but Rupert talked to hide the curiosity which could have little satisfaction until Halkett took his leave.

When he rose to go, he stood before Helen's chair and looked down at her. He was so near that she had to throw back her head before she could see his face.

"Good-night, George."

"Good-night." He took her hand and kissed it, nodded to the others, and went out.

Imperceptibly, Helen straightened herself and took a breath. There was a vague stir in the room.

"Well! I've never been more damned," John said.

"Why?" Helen asked.

"That salute. Is it his usual manner?"

"He has done it before. I liked it."

"He did it very well," said Rupert. "Inspired, I should think. Will you have a cigarette?"

"Will it make me sick?"

"Try it. But why do we find you entertaining the moorland rake?"

She was absurd with the cigarette between her lips, and she asked mumblingly as Rupert held the match, "Why do you call him that?"

Rupert spread his hands. "He has a reputation."

"And he deserves it," said John.

She took the cigarette and many little pieces of tobacco from her mouth. "Before you go any further, I think I had better tell you that I am married to him."

"Good God!" John said, in a conversational tone.

There was a pause that threatened to be everlasting.

"Helen, dear, did you say 'married to him'?"

"Yes, I did."

Rupert lighted one cigarette from another and carefully threw the old one into the fire.

"When?" John asked. He was still staring at her.

"I forget the date."

"Won't you tell us about it?" Rupert said. He leaned against the mantelpiece and puffed quickly.

"There's nothing more to tell."

"But when was it?" John persisted.

"Oh—about a month, six weeks, ago. The paper is upstairs, but one forgets."

"Wants to?"

"I didn't say so, did I? Notya is not to know."

"And Zebedee?"

"Of course he knows."

Rupert was frowning on her with a troubled look, and she knew he was trying to understand, that he was anxious not to hurt her.

"I'm damned if I understand it," John muttered.

Her lips had a set smile. "I'm sure," she said lightly, "you'll never be damned for that. I'm afraid I can't explain, but Zebedee knows everything."

They found nothing else to say: John turned away, at last, and busied himself uneasily with his pipe: Rupert's cigarette became distasteful, and, throwing it after the other, he drove his hands into his pockets and watched it burn.

"I suppose we ought to have congratulated George," he said, and looked grieved at the omission.

Helen laughed on a high note, and though she knew she was disclosing her own trouble by that laughter, she could not stay it.

"Oh, Rupert, don't!"

"My dear, I know it's funny, but I meant it. I wish I could marry you myself."

She laughed again and waved them both away. "Go and see Notya. She may not be asleep."

When John came downstairs, he looked through the kitchen door and said good-night; then he advanced and kissed her. She could not remember when he had last done that, and it was, she thought, as though he kissed the dead. He patted her arm awkwardly.

"Good-night, child."

"Don't worry," she said, steadying her lips.

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Be nice to George."

"Oh, I've got to be."

"John, I wish you wouldn't talk as if he's—bad."

"I didn't mean to set myself up as judge, but I never liked him."

"But I like him," she said. "Go home and tell Lily. I'm afraid she'll lie awake all night!"

"What a family this is!"

"Once, I might have said that to you. I didn't, John."

"But we are a success."

"And why should we not be? We shall be! We—we are. Go home. Good-night."

She waited for Rupert, dreading his quick eyes.

"Notya seems better," he said easily. "Well, did you finish the cigarette?"

"I didn't like it."

"And it looked wrong. A piece of fine sewing suits you better."

She smiled. "Does it? Have you had supper?"

"Lily fed me. I like that girl. The only people I ever want to marry are the ones that some one else has chosen. It's contrariness, I suppose." He looked round. "Two arm-chairs? Do you always sit here?"

"Yes. Notya can't hear us."

"I see."

"And you want to see the rest?"

"I do."

"I shall show you nothing."

"I'd rather find it out."

"Tomorrow," she said, "you will see Daniel and Zebedee. I know you'll be curious about him. I don't mind, but don't let him notice it, please, Rupert."

He marked her little tremor. "Trust me. I'm wasted on the bank."

"You and Daniel will have a fine talk, I suppose. The walls of that house are very thin. Be careful."

"Yes, my dear. I can't help wishing I had not left home."

She stood up. "I don't wish anything undone. If you begin undoing, you find yourself in a worse tangle."

"You're not unhappy?"

"Do I look it?"

"You always answer one question with another. You didn't look it. You do now."

She sighed. "I almost wish you hadn't come, Rupert. You made beauty seem so near."



CHAPTER XXXV

She had another reason for her wish. She knew that Rupert had but delayed what was inevitable, and when it came one night, a few weeks later, she had no feeling beyond relief that the fight was over, that she need no longer scheme to outwit George with her advances and retreats. Afterwards, she suffered from a black anger that she must serve the man she did not love, a dull despair from the knowledge that, while both lived, the tie would hold. Her mind tried, and failed, to make nothing of it; by nature she was bound to him who took most from her, and when George had played the husband, he left her destitute. That Zebedee would always have the best of her had been her boast, but for a time, there was nothing he could have. She was George Halkett's woman. The day was fogged with memories of the night, yet through that fog she looked for his return. She was glad when she heard his step outside and, going to the kitchen door, felt herself lifted off her feet. She did not try to analyze the strange mingling of willingness and shrinking that made up her feeling for him, but she found mental safety in abandoning herself to what must be, a primitive pleasure in the fact of being possessed, a shameful happiness in submission.

Nevertheless, it was only in his presence that she lost her red sense of shame, and though she still walked nobly, looked with clear eyes, and carried a high head, she fancied herself bent by broken pride, blinded and dusty-haired. Zebedee's books helped her to blot out that vision of herself and the other of Mildred Caniper still sitting by the fire and refusing the fulness of the sun. What she read amazed her with its profundity and amused her with its inconclusiveness. She had an awed pity for men whose lives were occupied in these endless questionings, and while Mildred idly turned the pages of periodicals she once had scorned, Helen frowned and bit her lips over the problems of the ages.

They gave her and Zebedee something impersonal to talk of when he came on his weekly visit.

"It's no good telling me," she warned him firmly, "that my poplars are not really there. I can feel them and see them and hear them—always hear them. If they weren't there, they would be! If I exist, so do they."

"Quite so. You're doing very well. I told you the medicine would turn to food."

"It's not food. What is it that nasty people chew? Gum? Yes, chewing-gum. It keeps me going. I mean—"

He helped her over that abyss. "It's a most improper name for wisdom."

"This isn't wisdom. Wisdom is just going on—and—keeping the world clean."

"Then," he said slowly, "you may count among the sages."

They stood together by the schoolroom window and watched the windy sunshine darting among the laurel bushes and brightening the brass on the harness of the patient horse outside the gate.

"I wonder," Helen said, speaking as if she were not quite awake, "whether Mr. Pinderwell ever read philosophy."

"No," Zebedee answered in the same tones; "he took to wood-carving."

This time she leapt the abyss unaided and with a laugh.

"But then, he never had a stepmother nodding beside the fire. What is going to happen to her?"

"She has very little strength."

"But she isn't going to die?"

"Not yet, I think, dear." The word slipped from him, and they both listened to its echoes.

"I wish you'd go," she whispered.

"I'm going." He did not hesitate at the door or he would have seen her drop into a chair and let her limp arms slide across the table as she let out a noisy sob of happiness because his friendliness was still only a cloak that could sometimes be lifted to show the man beneath.

Almost gaily, she went to Mildred Caniper's room.

"Zebedee stayed a long time today. I could hear you talking."

"Yes."

"Isn't he busy now?"

"He works all day and half the night."

"Oh." Mildred's twisted face regained a semblance of its old expression and her voice some of its precision. "Then you ought to be looking after him."

"I can't manage both of you."

"No, but Mrs. Samson could look after me." The words were slovenly again; the face changed subtly as sand changes under water. It became soft and indefinite and yielding, betraying the slackening of the mind.

"Mrs. Samson is a nice woman—very kind. She knows what I want. I must have a good fire. I don't need very much. She doesn't bother me—or talk. I don't want to be bothered—about anything. I'm still—rather tired. I like to sit here and be warm. Give me that magazine, Helen. There's a story—" She found the place and seemed to forget all she had said.

Helen left the room and, as she sat on the topmost stair, she wished Mr. Pinderwell would stop and speak to her, but he hurried up and down as he had always done, intent on his own sad business of seeking what he had lost. It was strange that he could not see the children who were so plain to Helen. She turned to speak to them, but she had outgrown them in these days, and even Jane was puzzled by her grief that Mildred Caniper wanted to be kept warm, and, with some lingering faculty, wished Helen to be happy, but needed her no longer.

Helen whispered into the dimness because her thoughts were unwholesome and must be cast forth.

"She only wants to be kept warm! It was sweet of her to try to think of me, but she couldn't go on thinking. Oh, Jane, Mrs. Samson and I are just the same. She doesn't mind who puts coals on the fire. I wish she'd die. I always loved her very much, and she loved me, but now she doesn't. She's just a—bundle. It's ugly. If I stay here and look at her, I shall get like her. Oh—she wants me to go and live with Zebedee. Zebedee! He wouldn't like me to go on like this. The philosophers—but that old bishop can't make me think that Notya isn't dying. That's what she's doing, Jane—dying. But no, dying is good and death is splendid. This is decay." She stood up and shuddered. "I mustn't stay here," she murmured sensibly.

She called to Jim in a loud voice that attempted cheerfulness and alarmed her with its noise in the silent house of sorrow and disease.

"The moor, Jim!" she said, and when she had passed through the garden with the dog leaping round her, she shook her skirts and held up her palms to get the freshness of the wind on them.

"We'll find water," she said, but she would not go to the stream that ran into the larch-wood. Today, the taint of evil was about Halkett's Farm, as that of decay was in Mildred Caniper's room.

"We'll go to the pool where the rushes are, Jim, and wash our hands and face."

They ran fleetly, and as they went she saw George at a distance on his horse. He waved his hat, and, before she knew what she was doing, she answered with a grimace that mocked him viciously and horrified her with its spontaneity. She cried aloud, and, sinking to the ground, she hid her dishonoured face.

"No, no," she moaned. She hated that action like an obscenity. Surely she was tainted, too.

Jim licked her covering hands, and whined when she paid no heed.

"Hateful! hateful!" were the words he heard and tried to understand. He sat, alert and troubled, while clouds rolled across the sky, and dark reflections of them made stately progress on the moor. Sheep, absorbed in feeding, drew near, looked up and darted off with foolish, warning bleats, but still his mistress kept her face hidden, and did not move until he barked loudly at the sight of Halkett riding towards them.

"I couldn't keep away," the man said, bending from his saddle.

She rose and leaned against his knee. "George, what do I look like?"

His fervent answer was not the one she wanted.

"But do I look the same?"

He held her by the chin. "Have you been crying?"

"No."

"What is it then?"

She looked beyond him at the magnificence of the clouds and her troubles dwindled. "I felt miserable. I was worried."

"And you're happier now?"

She nodded.

"Then give me a kiss."

She turned her cheek to him.

"No. I said, give me one."

"I can't reach you."

"You don't want to."

"I never want to kiss people."

"People! Then do it to please me."

His cheek hardly felt her pressure.

"It's the way a ghost would kiss," he said.

"That's how I shall haunt you when I'm dead."

"Nay, we'll have to die together."

She wrinkled her face. "But we can't do that without a lot of practice."

"What? Oh!" Her jokes made him uneasy. "I must go on. Helen, I'll see you tonight."

"Yes, you'll see the ghost who gives the little kisses."

"Don't say it!"

"But it's nice to be a ghost, you feel so light and free. There isn't any flesh to be corrupted. I'm glad I thought of that, George. Good-bye."

"No. Come here again. Stand on my foot." He clinched her waist and kissed her on the mouth and let her drop. "You are no ghost," he said, and rode away.

She was indeed no ghost. Some instinct told him how to deal with her, and when he insisted on her humanity, her body thrilled in answer and agreement, and with each kiss and each insistence she became more his own; yet she was thrall less to the impulses of her youth than to some age-old willingness to serve him who possessed her. But her life had mental complications, for she dreaded in Zebedee the disloyalty which she reluctantly meted out to him when George had her in his arms. She would not have Zebedee love another woman, and she longed for assurance of his devotion, but she could not pass the barrier he had set up; she could not try to pass it without another and crueller disloyalty to both men. Her body was faithful to George and her mind to Zebedee, and the two fought against each other and wearied her.

The signs of strain were only in her eyes; her body had grown more beautiful, and when Miriam arrived on a short visit to the moor, she stopped in the doorway to exclaim, "But you're different! Why are you different?"

"It is a long time since you went away," Helen said slowly. "Centuries."

"Not to me! The time has flown." She laughed at her recollections. "And, anyhow, it's only a few months, and you have changed."

"I expect it is my clothes," Helen said calmly. "They must look queer to you."

"They do. But nice. I've brought some new ones for you. I think you'll soon be prettier than I am. Think of that!"

They had each other by the hand and looked admiringly in each other's face, remembering small peculiarities they had half forgotten: there was the soft hair on Helen's temples, trying, as Zebedee said, to curl; there was the little tilt to Miriam's eyebrows, giving her that look of some one not quite human, more readily moved to mischief than to kindness, and never to be held at fault.

"Yes, it's centuries," Helen said.

"It's only a day!"

"Then you have been happy," Helen said, letting out a light sigh of content.

"Yes, but I'm glad to be here again, so long as I needn't stay. I've heaps to tell you." She stretched herself, like a cat. "I knew there was fun in the world. I had faith, my dear, and I found it."

Helen was looking at her with her usual confusion of feelings: she wanted to shake off Miriam's complacence roughly, while she was fondly glad that she should have it, but this remark would not pass without a word, and Helen shook her head.

"No; you didn't find it. Uncle Alfred gave it to you—he and I."

"You? Oh—yes, I suppose you did. Well—thank you very much, and don't let us talk about it any more. You're like a drag-net, bringing up the unpleasant. Don't let us quarrel."

"Quarrel! I couldn't," Helen said simply.

"Are you so pleased to see me?"

Helen's reluctant smile expanded. "I suppose it's that."

"Aha! It's lovely to be me! People go down like ninepins! Why?" Piously, she appealed to Heaven. "Why?"

"They get up again, though," Helen said with a chuckle.

"For instance?" Miriam demanded truculently.

"Oh, I'm not going to be hard on you," Helen said, and though she spoke with genuine amusement, she felt a little seed of anger germinating in her breast. That was what George had done to her: he had made her heart a fertile place for passions which her mind disdained.

"And I'm so glad to have you here," she added, defying harsh emotions.

"Ah! You're rather nice—and, yes, you are much prettier. How have you done it? I should like to kiss you."

"Well, you may." She put her face close to Miriam's, and enjoyed the coolness of that sisterly salute.

"But," Miriam said, startled by a thought, "need I kiss—her?"

"No. You won't want to do that. She isn't very nice to look at."

Miriam shrank against the wall. "Not ugly?"

"You must come and see," Helen said. She was shaken again by a moment's anger as she looked on Miriam's lovely elegance and remembered the price that had been paid for it. "You must come and see her," she repeated. "Do you think you are the only one who hates deformity?"

"Deformity?" Miriam whispered.

"Her face is twisted. Oh—I see it every day!"

"Helen, don't! I'll go, but don't make me stay long. I'll go now," she said, and went on timid feet.

Helen stayed outside the door, for she could not bring herself to witness Mildred Caniper's betrayal of her decay to one who had never loved her: there was an indecency in allowing Miriam to see it. Helen leaned against the door and heard faint sounds of voices, and in imagination she saw the scene. Mildred Caniper sat in her comfortable chair by a bright fire, though it was now late June of a triumphant summer, and Miriam stood near, answering questions quickly, her feet light on the ground and ready to bear her off.

Very soon the door was opened and Miriam caught Helen's arm.

"I didn't think she would be like that," she whispered. "Helen, she's—she's—"

"I know she is," Helen said deeply.

"But I can't bear it!"

"You don't have to."

They went into Phoebe's room and shut the door, and it was a comfort to Miriam to have two solid blocks of wood between her and the deterioration in the chair.

"I know I ought to stay with you—all alone in this house—no one to talk to—and at night—Are you afraid? Do you have to sleep with her?"

"Sometimes," Helen said, and drew both hands down her face.

"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you, or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do something? Why doesn't he take you away?"

"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't look like that. I'm the same Helen."

"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?"

Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy.

"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her.

There were no merciful shadows in the room: daylight poured in at the windows and revealed Helen standing with hands clasped before her and gazing with wide eyes at Miriam's pale face, her parted lips, her horrified amazement.

"George?" she asked huskily.

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Why does one marry?"

"Oh, tell me, Helen! You can't have loved him."

"Perhaps he loved me."

"But—that night! Have you forgotten it?"

"No. I remember."

"So do I! I dream about it! Helen, tell me. What was it? There's Zebedee. And it was me that George loved."

Helen spoke sharply. "He didn't love you. You bewitched him. He loves me."

"You haven't told me everything."

"There is no reason why I should."

Miriam spoke on a sob. "You needn't be unkind. And where's your ring? You haven't said you love him. You're not really married, are you?"

"Yes, I am."

Crying without stint, Miriam went blindly to the window.

"I wish I hadn't come—!"

"You mustn't be unhappy. I'm not. It isn't very polite to George—or me."

"But when—when you think of that night—Oh! You must be miserable."

"Then you should be."

"I?"

"It was your doing. You tormented him. You played with him. You liked to draw him on and push him back. You turned a man into a—into what we saw that night. George isn't the only man who can be changed into a beast when—when he meets Circe! With me—" Her voice broke with her quickened breathing. Her indignation was no longer for her own maimed life: it was for George, who had been used lightly as a plaything, broken, and given to her for mending.

For a long time Miriam cried, and did not speak, and when she turned to ask a question Helen had almost forgotten her; for all her pity had gone out to George and beautified him and made him dear.

"Tell me one thing," Miriam said earnestly. "It hadn't anything to do with me?"

"What?"

"Marrying him. You see, I fainted, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Something might have happened then."

"It did."

"What was it?"

"He fell in love with me!" She laughed. "It's possible, because it happened! Otherwise, of course, neither of us could believe it! Oh, don't be silly. Don't look miserable."

"I can't help it. It's my fault. It's my fault if Zebedee is unhappy and if you are. Yes, it is, because if I hadn't—Still, I don't know why you married him."

"I think it was meant to be. If we look back it seems as if it must have been." It was not Helen who looked through the window. "Yes," she said softly, "it is all working to one end. It had to be. Don't talk about it any more."

Wide-eyed above her tear-stained cheeks, her throat working piteously, Miriam stared at this strange sister. "But tell me if you are happy," she said in a breaking voice.

"Yes, I am. I love him," she said softly. Now, she did not lie. The pity that had taught her to love Mildred Caniper had the same lesson in regard to George, and that night, when she looked into the garden and saw him standing there, because he had been forbidden the house, she leaned from her bedroom window and held out her hands and ran downstairs to speak to him.

"You looked so lonely," she told him.

"Didn't you want me a little?" he asked. He looked down, big and gentle, and she felt her heart flutter as with wings. She nodded, and leaned against him. It was the truth: she did want him a little.



CHAPTER XXXVI

Miriam had the evidence of her own eyes to assure her that Helen was not unhappy. The strangely united bride and bridegroom were seen on the moor together, and they looked like lovers. Moreover, Helen stole out to meet him at odd hours, and, on the day before Miriam went away, she surprised them in a heathery dip of ground where Helen sewed and George read monotonously from a book.

"I—didn't know you were here," Miriam stammered.

"Well, we're not conspirators," Helen said. "Come and sit down. George is reading to me."

"No, I don't think I will, thank you." Until now, she had succeeded in avoiding George, but there was no escape from his courteous greeting and outstretched hand. His manners had improved, she thought: he had no trace of awkwardness; he was cool and friendly, and, with the folly of the enamoured, he could no longer find her beautiful. She was at once aware of that, and she knew the meaning of his glance at Helen, who bent over her work and did not look at them.

"How are you?" Halkett said.

She found it difficult to answer him, and while she told herself she did not want his admiration, she felt that some show of embarrassment was her due.

"I'm very well. No; I won't stay. Helen, may I take Jim?"

"If he will go with you."

Jim refused to stir, and with the burden of that added insult, Miriam went on her way. It seemed to her that, in the end, Helen had everything.

Helen believed that the wisdom of her childhood had returned to her to teach her the true cause of happiness. For her it was born of the act of giving, and her knowledge of George's need was changed into a feeling that, in its turn, transformed existence. Her mental confusion cleared itself and, concentrating her powers on him, she tried not to think of Zebedee. She would not dwell on the little, familiar things she loved in him, nor would she speculate on his faithfulness or his pain, for his exile was the one means of George's homecoming. And, though she did not know it, Zebedee, loving her truly, understood the workings of her mind, and his double misery lessened to a single one when he saw her growing more content.

He went to Pinderwell House one fine evening, for there were few days when he could find time to drive up the long road, and though Mildred Caniper did not need his care, she looked for his coming every week.

It was a placid evening after a day of heat, and he could see the smoke from the kitchen chimney going straight and delicately towards the sky. The moor was one sheet of purple at this season, and it had a look of fulfilment and of peace. It had brought forth life and had yet to see it die, and it seemed to lie with its hands folded on its broad breast and to wait tranquilly for what might come.

Zebedee tried to imitate that tranquillity as the old horse jogged up the road, but he had not yet arrived at such perfection of control that his heart did not beat faster as he knocked at Helen's door.

Tonight there was no answer, and having knocked three times he went into the hall, looked into each room and found all empty. He called her name and had silence for response. He went through the kitchen to seek her in the garden, and there, under the poplars, he saw her sitting and looking at the tree-tops, while George smoked beside her and Jim lay at her feet.

It was a scene to stamp itself on the mind of a discarded lover, and while he took the impress he stood stonily in the doorway. He saw Halkett say a word to Helen, and she sprang up and ran across the lawn.

"I never thought you'd come," she said, breathing quickly.

He moved aside so that her body should not hide him from Halkett's careful eyes.

"Has something happened?" she asked. "You look so white."

"The day has been very hot."

"Yes; up here, even, and in that dreadful little town—Are you working hard?"

"I think so."

"And getting rich?"

"Not a bit."

"I don't suppose you charge them half enough," she said, and made him laugh. "Come and see Notya before she goes to sleep."

"Mayn't I speak to Mr. Halkett?" he asked.

She did not look at the two men as they stood together. Again she watched the twinkling poplar leaves and listened to their voices rustling between the human ones, and when she seemed to have been listening for hours, she said, "Zebedee, you ought to come. It's time Notya went to sleep."

She led him through the house, and neither spoke as they went upstairs and down again, but at the door, she said, "I'll see you drive away," and followed him to the gate.

She stood there until he was out of sight, and then she went slowly to the kitchen where George was waiting for her.

"You've been a long time."

"Have I? I mean, yes, I have."

"What have you been doing?"

"Standing at the gate."

"Talking?"

"Thinking."

"Was he thinking too?"

"I expect so."

"H'm. Do you like him to come marching through your house?"

"Why not? He's an old friend of ours."

"He seems to be! You were in a hurry to get away from me, I noticed, and then you have to waste time mooning with him in the twilight."

"He wasn't there, George." She laid the back of her hand against her forehead. "I watched him out of sight."

"What for?"

"He looked so lonely, going home to—that. Are you always going to be jealous of any one who speaks to me? It's rather tiring."

"Are you tired?"

"Yes," she said with a jerk, and pressed her lips together. He pulled her to his knee, and she put her face against his strong, tanned neck.

"Well," he said, "what's this for?"

"Don't tease me."

"I'm not so bad, then, am I?"

"Not so bad," she answered. "You have been smoking one of those cigars."

"Yes. D'you mind?"

"I love the smell of them," she said, and he laid his cheek heavily on hers.

"George!"

"U-um?" he said, drowsing over her.

"I think the rest of the summer is going to be happy."

"Yes, but how long's this to last? I want you in my house."

"I wish it wasn't in a hollow."

"What difference does that make? We're sheltered from the wind. We lie snug on winter nights."

"I don't want to. I like to hear the wind come howling across the moor and beat against the walls as if it had great wings. It does one's crying for one."

"Do you want to cry?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"No."

"When, then?"

"Don't you?"

"Of course not. I swear instead." He shook her gently. "Tell me when you want to cry."

"Oh, just when the wind does it for me," she said sleepily.

"I'll never understand you."

"Yes, you will. I'm very simple, and now I'm half asleep."

"Shall I carry you upstairs?"

She shook her head.

"Helen, come to my house. Bring Mrs. Caniper. I want you. And the whole moor's talking about the way we live."

"Oh, let the moor talk! Don't you love to hear it? It's the voice I love best. I shan't like living in your house while this one stands."

"But you'll have to."

She put up a finger. "I didn't say I wouldn't. Will you never learn to trust me?"

"I am learning," he said.

"And you must be patient. Most people are engaged before they marry. You married me at once."

"Hush!" he said. "I don't like thinking about that."

After this confession, her mind crept a step forward, and she dared to look towards a time when Mildred Caniper would be dead and she at Halkett's Farm. The larch-lined hollow would half suffocate her, she believed, but she would grow accustomed to its closeness as she would grow used to George and George to her. Soon he would completely trust her. He would learn to ask her counsel, and, at night, she would sit and sew and listen to his talk of crops and cattle, and the doings and misdoings of his men. He would have no more shyness of her, but sometimes she would startle him into a memory of how he had wooed her in the kitchen and seen her as a star. And she would have children: not those shining ones who were to have lived in the beautiful bare house with her and Zebedee, but sturdy creatures with George's mark on them. She would become middle-aged and lose her slenderness, and half forget she had ever been Helen Caniper; yet George and the children would always be a little strange to her, and only when she was alone and on the moor would she renew her sense of self and be afraid of it.

The prospect did not daunt her, for she had faith in her capacity to bear anything except the love of Zebedee for another woman. She ignored her selfishness towards him because the need to keep him was as strong as any other instinct: he was hers, and she had the right to make him suffer, and, though she honestly tried to shut her thoughts against him, when she did think of him it was to own him, to feel a dangerous joy in the memory of his thin face and tightened lips.

On the moor, harvests were always late, and George was gathering hay in August when richer country was ready to deliver up its corn, and one afternoon when he was carting hay from the fields beyond the farm, Helen walked into the town, leaving Lily Brent in charge of Mildred Caniper.

Helen had seldom been into the town since the day when she had married George, and the wind, trying to force her back, had beaten the body that was of no more value to her. Things were better now, and she had avenged herself gaily on the god behind the smoke. He had heard few sounds of weeping and he had not driven her from the moor: he had merely lost a suppliant and changed a girl into a woman, and today, in her independence of fate, she would walk down the long road and plant a pleasant thought at every step, and she need not look at the square house which Zebedee had bought for her.

She had told George to meet her at the side road if he had any errands for her in the town, and though he had none, he was there before her. Watching her approach, he thought he had never seen her lovelier. She wore a dress and hat of Miriam's choosing, the one of cream colour and the other black, and the beauty of their simple lines added to the grace that could still awe him.

"You look—like a swan," he said.

"Oh, George, a horrid bird!" She came close and looked up, for she liked to see him puzzled and adoring.

"It's the way you walk—and the white. And that little black hat for a beak."

"Well, swan or not," she said, and laughed, "you think I look nice, don't you?"

"I should think I do!" He stepped back to gaze at her. "You must always have clothes like that. There's no need for you to make your own."

"But I like my funny little dresses! Don't I generally please you? Have you been thinking me ugly all this time?"

He did not answer that. "I wish I was coming with you."

"You mustn't. There are hay-seeds on you everywhere. Is the field nearly finished? George, you are not answering questions!"

"I'm thinking about you. Helen, you needn't go just yet. Sit down under this tree. You're lovely. And I love you. Helen, you love me! You're different now. Will you wear that ring?"

Her mind could not refuse it; she was willing to wear the badge of her submission and so make it complete, and she gave a shuddering sigh. "Oh, George—"

"Yes, yes, you will. Look, here it is. I always have it with me. Give me your little hand. Isn't it bright and heavy? Do you like it?" He held her closely. "And my working clothes against your pretty frock! D'you mind?"

"No." She was looking at the gold band on her finger. "It's heavy, George."

"I chose a heavy one."

"Have you had it in your pocket all the time?"

"All the time."

He and she had been alike in cherishing a ring, but when she reached home she would take Zebedee's from its place and hide it safely. She could not give it back to him: she could not wear it now.

"I must go," she said, and freed herself.

He kissed the banded finger. "Be quick and come back and let me see you wearing it again."

It weighted her, and she went more slowly down the road, feeling that the new weight was a symbol, and when she looked back and saw George standing where she had left him, she uttered a small cry he could not hear and ran to him.

"George, you must always love me now. You—I—"

"What is it, love?"

"Nothing. Let me go. Good-bye," she said, and walked on at her slow pace. Light winds brought summer smells to her, clouds made lakes of shadow on the moor, and here, where few trees grew and little traffic passed, there were no dusty leaves to tell of summer's age; yet, in the air, there was a smell of flowers changing to fruit.

She passed the gorse bushes in their second blossoming, and the moor, stretched before her, was as her life promised to be: it was monotonous in its bright colouring, quiet and serene, broad-bosomed for its children. Old sheep looked up at her as she went by, and she saw herself in some relationship to them. They were the sport of men, and so was she, yet perhaps God had some care of them and her. It was she and the great God of whose existence she was dimly sure who had to contrive honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity.

So young in years, so wise in experience of the soul, she thought there was little more for her to learn, but acquaintance with birth and death awaited her: they were like beacons to be lighted on her path, and she had no fear of them.



CHAPTER XXXVII

She did her shopping in her unhurried, careful way, and went on to the outfitter who made John's corduroy trousers. Clothes that looked as if they were made of cardboard hung outside the shop; unyielding coats, waistcoats and trousers seemed to be glued against the door: stockings, suspended by their gaudy tops, flaunted stiff toes in the breeze, and piles of more manageable garments were massed on chairs inside, and Helen was aghast at the presence of so many semblances of man.

It was dark in the shop, and the smell of fustian absorbed the air. The owner, who wore an intricately-patterned tie, stood on the pavement and talked to a friend, while a youth, pale through living in obscurity, lured Helen in.

She gave her order: two pairs of corduroy trousers to be made for Mr. Caniper of Brent Farm, to the same measurements as before: she wished to see the stuff.

"If you'll take a seat, miss—"

She would rather stand outside the door, she said, and he agreed that the day was warm.

The narrow street was thronged with people who were neither of the town nor of the country, and suffered the disabilities of the hybrid. There were few keen or beautiful faces, and if there were fine bodies they were hidden under clumsy clothes. Helen wanted to strip them all, and straighten them, and force them into health and comeliness, and though she would not have her moor peopled by them, she wished they might all have moors of their own.

The young man was very slow. She could hear him struggling with bales of cloth and breathing heavily. It was much hotter here than on the moor, and she supposed that human beings could grow accustomed to any smell, but she stepped further towards the kerbstone and drew in what air the street could spare to her.

Quite unconscious of her fairness against the dingy background, she watched the moving people and heard the talk of the two men near her. They spoke of the hay crop, the price of bacon, the mismanagement of the gas company, and the words fell among the footsteps of the passers-by, and the noise of wheels, and became one dull confusion of sound to her; but all sounds fainted and most sights grew misty when she saw Zebedee walking on the other side of the street, looking down as he went, but bending an ear to the girl beside him.

Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her.

The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman say, "That's a case, I think. I've seen that couple about before. Time he was married, too."

Slowly Helen turned a head, which felt stiff and swollen, to look at the person who could say so. She restrained a desire to hold it, and, stepping to the threshold of the shop, she called into the depths that she would soon return.

Without any attempt at secrecy she followed that pair absorbed in one another. She went because there was no choice, she was impelled by her necessity to know and unhindered by any scruples, and when she had seen the two pass down the quiet road leading to his house, with his hand on her elbow and her face turned to his, Helen went back to the young man and the bales of cloth.

She chose the corduroy and left the shop, and it was not long before she found herself outside the town, but she could remember nothing of her passage. She came to a standstill where the moor road stretched before her, and there she suffered realization to fall on her with the weight of many waters. She cried out under the shock, and, turning, she ran without stopping until she came to Zebedee's door.

An astonished maid tried not to stare at this flushed and elegant lady.

"The doctor is engaged, miss," she said.

"I shall wait. Please tell him that I must see him."

"What name shall I say?"

"Miss Caniper. Miss Helen Caniper." She had no memory of any other.

She sat on one of the hard leather chairs and looked at a fern that died reluctantly in the middle of the table. Her eyes burned and would not be eased by tears, her heart leapt erratically in her breast, yet the one grievance of which she was exactly conscious was that Zebedee had a new servant and had not told her. If she had to have her tinker, surely Zebedee might have kept Eliza. She was invaded by a cruel feeling of his injustice; but her thoughts grew vague as she sat there, and her dry lips parted and closed, as though they tried to frame words and could not. For what seemed a long, long time, she could hear the sound of voices through the wall: then the study door was opened, a girl laughed, Zebedee spoke; another door was opened, there were steps on the path and the gate clicked. She sat motionless, still staring at the fern, but when Zebedee entered she looked up at him and spoke.

"Zebedee," she said miserably.

"Come into my room," he said.

The door was shut on them, and she dropped against it.

"Zebedee, I can't bear it."

"My little life!"

"I was so happy," she said piteously, "and, in the street, I saw you with that girl. You held her arm, and I had to come to you. I had, Zebedee."

"Had you, dear?" he said. He was pulling off her gloves, gently and quickly, holding each wrist in turn, and together they looked at the broad band of gold. Their eyes met in a pain beyond the reach of words.

She bowed her head, but not in shame.

"My hat, too," she said, and he found the pins and took it from her.

"Your ring is here," she said, and touched herself. Her lips trembled. "I can't go back."

"You need not, dearest one. Sit down. I must go and speak to Mary."

"She is better than Eliza," Helen said when he returned.

"Yes, better than Eliza." He spoke soothingly. "Are you comfortable there? Tell me about it, dear." He folded his arms and leaned against his desk, and as he watched her he saw the look of strain pass from her face.

She smiled at him. "Your cheeks are twitching."

"Are they?"

"They always do when you think hard."

"You are sitting where you sat when you first came here."

"And there were no cakes."

"Only buns."

"And they were stale."

"You said you liked them."

"I liked—everything—that day."

"I think," he said, jerking his chin upwards, "we won't have any reminiscences."

"Why not?" she asked softly. She went to him and put her arms round his neck. "It's no good, Zebedee. I've tried. I really loved him—but it's you—I belong to you." He could hardly hear what she said. "Can you love me any longer? I've been—his. I've liked it. I was ready to do anything—like that—for him."

"Speak a little louder, dear."

"You see, one could forget. And I did think about children, Zebedee, I couldn't help it."

"Precious, of course you couldn't."

"But you were always mine. And when I saw you this afternoon, there was no one else. And no one else can have you. You don't love any one but me. How could you? She can't have you. I want you. And you're mine. Your hands—and eyes—and face—this cheek—You—you—I can't—I don't know what I'm saying. I can't go back! He'll—he put this ring on me today. I let him. I was glad—somehow. Glad!" She broke away from him and burst into a fit of weeping.

He knew the properties of her tears, and he had no hope of any gain but what could come to him by way of her renewed serenity; he made shift to be content with that, and though the sound of her crying hurt him violently, he smiled at her insistence on possessing him. She had married another man, but she would not resign her rights to the one she had deserted, though he, poor soul, must claim none. It was one of the inconsistencies he loved in her, and he was still smiling when she raised her head from the arm of the chair where she had laid it.

"I'm sorry, Zebedee. I'm better now. I'm—all right."

"Wipe your eyes, Best of all. We're going to have some tea. Can you look like some one with a—with a nervous breakdown?"

"Quite easily. Isn't that just what I have had?"

Mary was defter than Eliza and apparently less curious, and while she came and went they talked, like the outfitter and his friend, about the crops; but when she had gone Zebedee moved the table to the side of Helen's chair, so that, as long ago, no part of her should be concealed.

"Yes," he said, looking down, "but I like you better in your grey frocks."

"Do you? Do you? I'm glad," she said, but she did not tell him why. Her eyes were shining, and he found her no less beautiful for their reddened rims. "You are the most wonderful person in the world," she said. "It was unkind of me to come, wasn't it?"

"No, dear. Nothing is unkind when you do it."

"But it was, Zebedee. Because I'm going back, after all."

"I knew you would."

"Did you? I must, you know."

"Yes," he said, "I know. Helen, that girl—Daniel's in love with her."

"Oh, poor Miriam! Another renegade! But I'm not jealous any more, so don't explain."

"But I want to tell you about her. He pursues and she wearies of him. I'm afraid he's a dreadful bore."

"But that's no reason why you should take her arm."

"Did I take it? I like her. I wish she would marry Daniel, but he is instructive in his love-making. He has no perceptions. I'm doing my best for him, but he won't take my advice. Yes, I like her, but I shall never love any one but you."

"Oh, no, you couldn't really. But see what I have had to do!" Her eyes were tired with crying. "And have to do," she added in a lower tone. "It makes one think anything might happen. One loses faith. But now, here with you, I could laugh at having doubted. Yes, I can laugh at that, and more. That's the best of crying. It makes one laugh afterwards and see clearly. I can be amused at my struggles now and see how small they were."

"But what of mine?" he asked.

"I meant yours, too. We are not separate. No. Even now that I—that I have a little love for George. He's rather like a baby, Zebedee. And he doesn't come between. Be sure of that; always, always!"

"Dearest, Loveliest, if you will stay with me—Well, I'm here when you need me, and you know that."

"Yes." She looked beyond him. "Coming here, this afternoon, I saw the way. I made it beautiful. And then I saw you, and the mists came down and I saw nothing else. But now I see everything by the light of you." There was a pause. "I've never loved you more," she said. "And I want to tell you something." She spoke on a rising note. "To me you are everything that is good and true—and kind and loving. There is no limit to your goodness. You never scold me, you don't complain, you still wait in case I need you. I ought not to allow you to do that, but some day, some day, perhaps I'll be as good as you are. I want you to remember that you have been perfect to me." She said the word again and lingered on it. "Perfect. If I have a son, I hope he'll be like you. I'll try to make him."

"Helen—"

"Wait a minute. I want to say some more. I'm not going back because I am afraid of breaking rules. I don't know anything about them, but I know about myself, and I'm going back because, for me, it's the only thing to do; and you see," she looked imploringly at him, "George needs me now more than he did before. He trusts to me."

"It is for you to choose, Beloved."

"Yes," she said. "There's nothing splendid about me. I'm just—tame. I wish I were different, Zebedee."

"Then you are the only one who wishes it."

She laughed a little and stood close to him.

"Bless me before I go, for now I have to learn it all again."



CHAPTER XXXVIII

Helen had a greeting ready for each turn of the road, but George did not appear. She looked for him at the side road to the farm, and she waited there for a while. She had thought he would be on the watch for her, and she had hoped for him. Since they had to meet, let it be soon: let her heart learn to beat submissively again, and the mouth kissed by Zebedee to take kisses from another. But he did not come, and later, when she had helped Mildred Caniper to bed, Helen sat on the moor to waylay and welcome him, and make amends for her unfaithfulness.

The night was beautiful; the light wind had dropped, the sky was set with stars, and small, pale moths made clouds above the heather. When she shook a tuft of it, there came forth a sweet, dry smell. She looked in wonder on the beauty of the world. Here, on the moor, there were such things to see and hear and smell that it would be strange if she could not find peace. In the town, it would be harder: it would be harder for Zebedee, though he had his work and loved it as she loved the moor, and she caught her breath sharply as she remembered his white face. There were matters of which it was not wise to think too much, and what need was there when he wanted her to be content, when the stars and a slip of a new moon shone in a tender sky, and birds made stealthy noises, not to wake the world?

Once more it seemed to her that men and women saw happiness and sorrow in a view too personal, and each individual too much isolated from the rest. Here she sat, a tiny creature on the greatness of the moor, a mere heartbeat in a vast life. If the heart missed a beat, the life would still go on, yet it was her part to make the beat a strong and steady one.

She wanted George to come, but she had a new fear of him. She might have lived a thousand years since she had parted from him a few hours back, and her instinct was to run away as from a stranger, but she would sit there until he was quite close, and then she would call his name and put out her hand, the one that wore his ring, and he would pull her up and take her home. She bowed her head to her knees. Well, already she had much that other people missed: that young man in the shop had not these little moths and the springing heather with purple flowers and the star that shone like a friend above her home.

The night grew darker: colour was sucked from the moor, and it lay as black as deep lake water, blacker than the sky. It was time that country folks were in their beds, and the Brent Farm lights went out as at a signal.

Helen went slowly through the garden and up the stairs, and when she had undressed she sat beside her window, wondering why George had not come. Surely she would have heard if any accident had befallen him?

The quiet of the night assured her that all was well: the poplars were concerned with their enduring effort to reach the sky; a cat went like a moving drop of ink across the lawn. She stretched out for her dressing gown and put it round her shoulders, and she sat there, leaning on the window ledge and looking into the garden until her eyelids dropped and resisted when she tried to raise them.

She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a familiar noise outside her door. She stood up and met George as he entered.

"I'm glad you've come." She put out a timid hand to touch him and had it brushed aside.

"Out of my way!" he said, pushing past her.

She saw he had been drinking though he was not drunk. His eyes were red, and he looked at her as though he priced her, with such an expression of disdaining a cheap thing that she learnt, in that moment, the pain of all poor women dishonoured. Yet she followed him and made him turn to her.

"What have you been doing?" she said. "I have been waiting for so long."

There came on his face the sneering look she had not lately seen, and in his throat he made noises that for a little while did not come to words.

"Ah! I've been into town, too; you little devil, pranking yourself out, coming to me so soft and gentle—kissing—Here!" He took her by the wrist and dragged the ring from her and made to throw it into the night. "But no," he said slowly. "No. I think not. Come here again. You shall wear it; you shall wear it to your dying day."

"I'm willing to," she said. His arm was round her, hurting her. "Tell me what's the matter, George."

He gripped her fiercely and let her go so that she staggered.

"Get back! I don't want to touch you!" Then he mimicked her. "'Won't you ever learn to trust me?' I'd learnt. I'd have given you my soul to care for. I—I'd done it—and you took it to the doctor!"

"No," she said. "I took my own." She was shaking; her bare feet were ice cold. "George—"

"You lied about him! Yes, you did! You who are forever talking about honesty!"

"I didn't lie. I didn't tell you the whole truth, but now I will, though I've never asked for any of your confessions. I shouldn't like to hear them. I suppose you saw me this afternoon?"

"Ay, I did. I saw you turn and run like a rabbit to that man's house. I'd come to meet you, my God! I was happy. You'd my ring at last. I followed you. I waited. I saw you come out, white, shaking, the way you're shaking now." He dropped into a chair. "Dirt! Dirt!" he moaned.

She made a sad little gesture at that word and began to walk up and down the room. The grey dressing gown was slung about her shoulders like a shawl, and he watched the moving feet.

"And then you went and had a drink," she said. "Yes. I don't blame you. That's what I was having, too. And my thirst is quenched. I'm not going to be thirsty any more. I had a long drink of the freshest, loveliest water, but I'll never taste it again. I'll never forget it either." For a time there was no sound but that of her bare feet on the bare floor. "What did you think I was doing there?" she whispered, and her pace grew faster.

His tone insulted her. "God knows!"

"Oh, yes."

"Kissing—I don't know. I don't know what you're equal to, with that smooth face of yours."

She halted in her march and stood before him. "I did kiss him. I'm glad. There is no one so good in the whole world."

She pressed her clasped hands against her throat. "I love him. I loved him before I promised to marry you. I love him still. No one could help doing that, I think. But it's different now. It has to be. I'm not his wife. I went to say—I went there, and I said good-bye to all that. I came back to you. You needn't be afraid—or jealous any more. I'm your wife, George, and I'll do my share. I promise." She started on her walk again, and still he watched the small, white feet.

"And I'm not outraged by what you've said," she went on in a voice he had not heard so coldly clear. "Men like you are so ready with abuse. Have you always been virtuous? You ask what you would never allow me to claim."

He looked up. "Since I married you—since I loved you—And I never will."

She laughed a little. "And I won't either. That's another bargain, but I know—I know too much about temptation, about love, to call lovers by bad names. And if you don't, it's your misfortune, George. I think you'd better go home and think about it."

He made an uncertain movement. He was like a child, she thought; he had to be commanded or cajoled, and her heart softened towards him because he was dumb and helpless.

"Let us be honest friends," she pleaded. "Yes, honest, George. I know I've talked a lot of honesty, and I had no right; but now I think I have, because I've told you everything and we can start afresh. I thought I was better than you, but now I know I'm not, and I'm sorry, George."

He looked up. "Helen—"

"Well?" She was on her knees before him, and her hands were persuading his to hold them.

He muttered something.

"I didn't hear."

"I beg your pardon," he said again, and, as she heard the words, she laughed and cried out, "No, no! I don't want you to say that! You've to possess me. Honour me, too, but always possess me!" She leaned back to look at him. "That's what you must do. You are that kind of man, so big and strong and—and stupid, George! Love me enough, and it will be like being buried in good earth. Can't you love me enough?" Her eyes were luminous and tender. She was fighting for two lives, for more that might be born.

"Buried? I don't know what you mean," he said; "but come you here!"

Her face was crushed against him, and it was indeed as though she were covered by something dark and warm and heavy. She might hear beloved footsteps, now and then, but they would not trouble her. Down there, she knew too much to be disturbed, too much to be hurt for ever by her lover's pain: he, too, would know a blessed burying.

It was not she who heard the opening of the bedroom door, but she felt herself being gently pushed from George's breast, and she had a strange feeling that some one was shovelling away the earth which she had found so merciful.

"No," she said. "Don't. I like it."

"Helen!" she heard George say, and she turned to see Mildred Caniper on the threshold.

"I heard voices," she said, looking a little dazed, but standing with her old straightness. "Who is here? It's Helen! It's—Helen! Oh, Helen—you!" Her face hardened, and her voice was the one of Helen's childhood. "I am afraid I must ask for an explanation of this extraordinary conduct."

The words were hardly done before she fell heavily to the floor.



CHAPTER XXXIX

Mildred Caniper died two days afterwards, without opening her eyes. Day and night, Helen watched and wondered whether, behind that mask, the mind was moving to acquaintance with the truth. Between life and death, she imagined a grey land where things were naked, neither clothed in disguising garments nor in glory. It might be that, for the first time, Mildred saw herself, looked into her own life and all the lives she knew, and gained a wider knowledge for the next. Nevertheless, it was horrible to Helen that Mildred Caniper had finally shut her eyes on the scene that killed her, and, for her last impression, had one of falsity and licence. Helen prayed that it might be removed, and, as she kept watch that first night, she told her all. There might be a little cranny through which the words could go, and she longed for a look or touch of forgiveness and farewell. She loved this woman whom she had served, but there were to be no more messages between them, and Mildred Caniper died with no other sound than the lessening of the sighing breaths she drew.

Zebedee guessed the nature of the shock that killed her, but only George and Helen knew, and for them it was another bond; they saw each other now with the eyes of those who have looked together on something never to be spoken of and never to be forgotten. She liked to have him with her, and he was dumb with pity for her and with regrets. To Miriam, when she arrived, it was an astonishment to find them sitting in the schoolroom, hand in hand, so much absorbed in their common knowledge that they did not loose their grasp at her approach, but sat on like lost, bewildered children in a wood.

Wherever Helen went, he followed, clumsy but protective, peering at her anxiously as though he feared something terrible would happen to her, too.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asked her.

"What?"

"Having me."

"I like it—but there's your hay."

"There's hay every year," he answered.

* * * * *

Uncle Alfred moved quietly about the house, stood uneasily at a window, or drifted into the garden, swinging his eyeglass, his expression troubled, his whole being puzzled by the capacity of his relatives to be dramatic, without apparent realization of their gift. Here was a sister suddenly dead, a niece wandering hand in hand with the man from whom another niece had fled, while the discarded lover acted the part of family friend; and that family preserved its admirable trick of asking no question, of accepting each member's right to its own actions. Only Miriam, now and then catching his eye in the friendly understanding they had established, seemed to make a criticism without a comment, and to promise him that, foolish as she was, he need not fear results on Helen's colossal scale.

It was Rupert who could best appreciate Helen's attitude, and when he was not thinking of the things he might have done for a woman he could help no longer, he was watching his sister and her impassivity, her unfailing gentleness to George, the perfection of her manner to Zebedee. She satisfied his sense of what was fitting, and gave him the kind of pleasure to be derived from the simple and candid handiwork of a master.

"If tragedy produces this kind of thing," he said to John with a gesture, "the suffering is much more than worth while—from the spectator's point of view."

"I don't know what you are talking about," John said.

"The way she manages those two."

"Who? And which?"

"Good Lord, man! Haven't you seen it? Helen and the two suitors."

John grunted. "Oh—that!" He had not yet learnt to speak of the affair with any patience.

* * * * *

Mildred Caniper had left the house and all it held to Helen.

"I suppose you'll try to let it," Rupert said. "I don't like to think of that, though. Helen, I wish she hadn't died. Do you think we were more unpleasant than we need have been?"

"Not much. She was unpleasanter than we were, really, but then—"

"Heavens, yes. What a life!"

Her lips framed the words in echo, but she did not utter them, though she alone had the right.

"So perhaps I am not sorry she is dead," Rupert said.

Helen's lips tilted in a smile. "I don't think you need ever be sorry that any one is dead," she said, and before she could hear what her words told him, he spoke quickly.

"Well, what about this house?"

"I shan't let it."

"Will you live here?"

"No. I'm going to George, but no one else shall have it. I don't think the Pinderwells would be happy. Is there any furniture you want? You can have anything except what's in the dining-room. That's for Zebedee. His own is hideous."

To Zebedee she said, "You'll take it, won't you?"

"I've always taken everything you've given me," he said, and with the words they seemed to look at each other fairly for the last time.

"And don't have any more dead ferns," she told him. "There was one in the dining-room the other day. You must keep fresh flowers on Mr. Pinderwell's table."

"I shall remember."

Nothing was left in the house except the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's bride, who smiled as prettily on the empty room as on the furnished one.

"She must stay with Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "What would he do if he found her gone? I wonder if they'll miss us."

She refused to leave the house until the last cart had gone down the road at which Helen must no longer look in hope. She watched the slow departure of the cart and held to the garden gate, rubbing it with her hands. She looked up at the long house with its wise, unblinking eyes. She had to leave it: George was waiting for her at the farm, but the house was like a part of her, and she was not complete when she turned away from it.

There was daylight on the moor, but when she dipped into the larch-wood she found it was already night, and night lay on the cobbled courtyard, on the farmhouse, and on George, who waited in the doorway.

"You're like you were before," he said. "A silver star coming through the trees—coming to me." He took her hand. "I don't know why you do it," he murmured, and led her in.

They slept in a room papered with a pattern of roses and furnished with a great fourposted bed. It was the room in which George Halkett and his father had been born, the best bedroom for many generations. The china on the heavy washstand had pink roses on it, too, and the house was fragrant with real roses, burning wood, clean, scented linen. Jasmine grew round the window and nodded in.

"Are you going to be happy?" George asked her, when the warm darkness dropped on them like another coverlet, and she hardly knew that it was she who reassured him. Could it be Helen Caniper in this room with the low ceiling and farmhouse smells, this bridal chamber of the Halketts? Helen Caniper seemed to have disappeared.

She woke when she had been asleep for a little while, and at first she could not remember where she was; then the window darted out of the darkness and the furniture took on shapes. She looked up and saw the looming canopy of the bed, she heard George breathing beside her, and suddenly she felt suffocated by the draperies and the low ceiling and the remembrance of the big pink roses growing on the wall.

She slid to the edge of the bed and out of it. The carpet was harsh to her feet, but, by the window, the bare boards soothed them.

There were dark clouds floating against the sky, and the larches looked like another cloud dropped down until she saw their crests, spear-like and piercing: they hid the moor in its livery of night.

She turned her head and listened to the sleeper, who did not stir except to breathe. She wanted to see her moor and the house where the Pinderwells were walking and wondering at its emptiness. George would not hear her if she dressed and left the room, and, having done so, she stood outside the door and listened before she fumbled her way along the passages.

She sped through the larches, but when her feet touched the heather they went more slowly, and now it was she who might have been a cloud, trailing across the moor. So she went until she saw the house, and then she ran towards it, startling the rabbits, hearing the blur of wings, and feeling the ping or flutter of insects against her face.

The doors were locked, but the kitchen window was not hasped, and through it she climbed. The room had an unfamiliar look: it was dismantled, and ghostly heaps of straw and paper lay where the men had left them, yet this was still her home: nothing could exile her.

She went into the hall and into each bare room, but she could not go upstairs. It was bad enough to see Mr. Pinderwell walking up and down, and she could not face the children whom she had deserted. She sat on the stairs, and the darkness seemed to shift about her. She thought of the bedroom she had left, and it seemed to her that there would never be a night when she would not leave it to find her own, nor a day when, as she worked in the hollow, her heart would not be here. Yet she was Helen Halkett, and she belonged to Halkett's Farm.

She rose and walked into the kitchen and slipped her hand along the mantelshelf to find a box of matches she had left there.

She was going to end the struggle. She could not burn Zebedee, but she could burn the house. The rooms where he had made love to her should stand no longer, and so her spirit might find a habitation where her body lived.

She piled paper and straw against the windows and the doors, and set a lighted match to them; then she went to the moor and waited. She might have done it in a dream, for her indifference: it was no more to her than having lighted a few twigs in the heather; but when she saw the flames climbing up like red and yellow giants, she was afraid. There were hundreds of giants, throwing up hands and arms and trying to reach the roof. They fought with each other as they struggled, and the dark sky made a mirror for their fights.

The poplars were being scorched, and she cried out at that discovery. Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not see them.

There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers pulled over his night things.

"God! What's up?" he cried.

"It's the house—only the house burning. There's no one there."

He looked into the face that was all black and white, like cinders; then at the flames, red and yellow, like live coals, and he held her by the arm because he did not like the look of her.

A man came running up. It was Halkett's William.

"Have you seen the master? He went round by the back."

"Go and look for him. Tell him his wife's here. I'll search the front."

Both men ran, shouting, but it was Helen who saw George at the window of Mildred Caniper's room.

She rushed into the garden where the heat was scorching, she heard his joyful "Helen!" as he saw her, and she held out her arms to him and called his name.

She saw him look back.

"I'll have to jump!" he shouted.

"Oh, George, come quickly!"

There were flames all round him as he leapt, and there were small ones licking his clothes when he fell at her feet.

"His neck's broke," William said.

They carried him on to the moor, and there he lay in the heather. She would not have him touched. She crouched beside him, watching the flames grow and lessen, and when only smoke rose from the blackened heap, she still sat on.

"I'm waiting for Zebedee," she said.

John sent for him, and he came, flogging his horse as a merciful man may, and when she saw him on the road, she went to meet him.

She put both hands on the shaft. "I set the house on fire," she said, looking up. "I didn't think of George. He was asleep. I had to burn it. But I've killed him, too. First there was Notya, and now George. I've killed them both. His neck is broken. William said, 'His neck's broke,' that's all, but he cried. Come and see him. He hasn't moved, but he was too big to die. I've killed him, but I held my arms out to him when he jumped."

THE END