"You allow it?"

"I—like it."

Mildred Caniper closed her eyes. "Please ask him not to do it in my presence."

"I'll tell him when he comes again," Helen answered agreeably, and her stepmother realized that the only weapons to which this girl was vulnerable were ones not willingly used: such foolish things as tears or sickness; she seemed impervious to finer tools. Helen's looks at the moment were unabashed: she was trying to remember what Zebedee had said, both for its own sake and to gauge its effect on Notya to whose memory it was clear enough, and its naturalness, the slight and unmistakable change in his voice as he spoke to Helen, hurt her so much with their reminder of what she had missed that pain made her strike once more.

"This is what I might have expected from Miriam."

"But," said Helen, all innocence, "she doesn't care for him."

"And you do."

She did not wish to say yes; she could not say no; she kept her half-smiling silence.

"How long has this been going on?" The tones were sharp with impotence.

"Oh—well—since you went to Italy. At least," she murmured vaguely, "that was when he came to tea."

But Mildred did not hear the last homely sentence, and Helen's next words came from a great distance, even from the shuttered room in Italy.

"And why should you mind? Why shouldn't we—like each other?"

Mildred Caniper opened her remarkably blue eyes, and said, almost in triumph, "You'll be disappointed."

At that Helen laughed with a security which was pathetic and annoying to the woman in the bed.

"Life—" Mildred Caniper began, and stopped. She had not yet reached the stage, she reflected, when she must utter platitudes about the common lot. She looked at Helen with unusual candour. "I have never spoken to you of these things," she said.

"Oh, I shouldn't like you to!" Helen cried, and her hands were near her ears.

Mildred allowed her lips to curve. "I am not referring to the facts of generation," she said drily, and her smile broadened, her eyebrows lifted humorously. "I am quite aware that the—the advantages of a country life include an early arrival at that kind of knowledge. Besides, you were fortunate in your brothers. And then there were all the books."

"The books?"

"The ones Rupert used to bring you."

"So you knew about them."

"I have had to remind you before, Helen, that I am not out of my mind."

"What else do you know?" Helen asked with interest, and sat down on the bed.

This was Miriam's inquiry when the conversation was reported to her.

"She didn't tell me anything else. I think she had said more than she meant. She is like that sometimes, now. It's because she hasn't so much strength."

"I expect she knows everything we ever did."

"Well, we never did much."

"No. And everything we do now."

"She didn't know about Zebedee."

"Oh, she wouldn't suspect you."

"Then don't do anything you shouldn't," Helen said mildly.

"Her 'should' and my 'should' are very different members of the same family, my dear." She peered into Helen's face and squeaked, "And what the devil is there to do?"

"Don't use words like that."

"Wow! Wow! This is the devil's St. Helena, I imagine. There's nothing to be done in it. I believe she has eyes all round her head."

"He's a gentleman always, in pictures."

"Are you really stupid?"

"I think so."

"I was talking about Notya."

"Oh."

"And I believe she can see with her ears and hear with her eyes. Helen—Helen, you don't think she gets up sometimes in the night, and prowls about, do you?"

"I should hear her."

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"I sleep so lightly. The other night—"

"Yes?"

"I was waked by a sheep coughing outside the garden."

Miriam burst out laughing. "Did you think it was Zebedee?" She laughed a great deal more than was necessary. "Now she's putting on her never-smiled-again expression! Will he be back before I go away?"

Helen looked at her dumbly. She heard the garden gate shutting behind John and Zebedee, Rupert and Miriam, with a clang which seemed to forbid return, and her dread of Zebedee's going became sharper, though beneath her dread there lay the courage she had promised him.

"And there will be the dog," she found herself saying aloud.

The animal, when he arrived, leapt from the dog-cart in which he had been unwillingly conveyed and proved to be an Airedale, guaranteed to be a perfect watch-dog and suspicious of all strangers.

Proudly, Zebedee delivered himself of these recommendations.

"He's trained, thoroughly trained to bite. And he's enormously strong. Just look at his neck! Look at his teeth—get through anything."

Helen was kneeling to the dog and asking, "Are you sure he'll bite people? He seems to like me very much."

"I've been telling him about you. My precious child, you can't have a dog who leaps at people unprovoked. He'd be a public danger. You must say 'Rats!' or something like that when you want him to attack."

"Well—I love him," she said.

"And I've something else for you."

"Oh, no!"

"Shut your eyes—"

"And open my mouth?"

"No, give me your hand. There! Will you wear that for me?"

"Oh! Oh! It's the loveliest thing I've ever seen in my life! Much! Oh, it's perfect. It's so white."

"Tell me I'm rather a success today."

"You're one all the time. Did you have it made for me?"

"D'you think I'd get you something out of a shop window? I made it up. And there's another thing—"

"But you won't have any money left!" she cried.

"Then I won't tell you about the third thing."

She said solemnly, "You ought to have no secrets from me."

"Have you none from me?"

"Not one. Except—but that's so silly—except the tinker."

"Tell me that one."

She obeyed him, and she frowned a little, because she could not understand why the thing should need telling. "And then I went on to the moor, and George Halkett ran after me, and I thought it was the tinker."

"Why," Zebedee asked, "did he run after you?"

"He must have thought I was some one else."

"Why does he run after anybody?"

"Because he's George, I think, and if John were here he would tell you the story of how he tried to kiss Lily Brent!"

"That sort of animal oughtn't to be let loose."

"I like him," Helen said. "I'm sorry for him."

"H'm," said Zebedee. "Well, you have the dog."

"Oh," she said, "he isn't like that with me. We've known each other all our lives. And you don't mind about the tinker?"

"I don't think so."

"It's not nearly so bad," she persuaded him, "as the real woman you once liked."

He did not contradict her. "We're not going to argue about dreams and the past. We haven't time for that."

"And I haven't begun to thank you! I knew you were going to bring a dog!"

"Who told you?"

"I just knew you'd think of it. But two lovely presents in one day, and both from you! But I feel—I feel—"

"I know. You want to drown the dog and throw the ring away as hostages for my safety."

"Yes, don't laugh."

"My dear," he said wearily, "there are moments when one can do nothing else."

"I'm sorry. And don't be angry with me in case you make me love you too much to let you go! And I'm brave, really. I promise to be good."

He nodded in his quick way while he looked at her as though, in spite of all he said, he feared he might never look at her again, and she was proud of his firm lips and steady eyes in the moment of the passionate admiration which lived with her like a presence while he was away.



CHAPTER XXII

Helen passed into a pale windy world one February morning and walked slowly down the track. There was no sharpness in the air and the colours of approaching spring seemed to hover between earth and heaven, though they promised soon to lay themselves down to make new green and splendid purple and misty blue. Slow-moving clouds paced across the sky, and as she looked at them Helen thought of Zebedee sailing under richer colour and with white canvas in the place of clouds. She wondered if time crept with him as slowly as it did with her; if he had as much faith in her courage as she had in his return. She knew he would come back, and she had trained herself to patience: indeed, it was no hard matter, for hers had always been a world in which there was no haste. The seasons had their leisured way; the people moved with heavy feet; the moor lay in its wisdom, suffering decay and growth. Even the Brent Farm cattle made bright but stationary patches in the field before the house, and as she drew nearer she came upon John and Lily leaning on a fence. Their elbows touched; their faces were content, as slowly they discussed the fate of the cow they contemplated, and Helen sat down to await their leisure.

Before her, the moor sloped to the road and rose again, lifting Pinderwell House on its bosom, and to her right, from the hidden chimneys of Halkett's Farm, she could see smoke rising as though it were the easy breath of some monster lying snug among the trees. There was no other movement, though the sober front of Pinderwell House was animated for an instant by the shaking of some white substance from a window. Miriam was at her household tasks, and Helen waved a hand to the dark being who had made life smoother for her since her night of stormy weeping. She waved a hand of gratitude and friendship, but the signal was not noticed, the house returned to its discretion, John and Lily talked sparsely but with complete understanding, and Helen grew drowsy in the sunshine. She was happier than she had ever been, for Zebedee had laid peace on her, like a spell, and the warmth of that happiness stole up from her feet and spread over her breast; it curled the corners of her mouth so that John, turning to look at her, asked her why she smiled.

"I'm comfortable," she said.

"Never been comfortable before?"

She gave him the clear depths of her eyes. "Not often."

He went away, driving the cow before him, and Lily stood looking after him.

"He's wonderful," she said. "He comes along and takes hold of things and begins to teach me my own business."

"So you're pleased with him?" Helen said demurely.

"Yes," the other answered with twitching lips, "he's doing very well." Her laughter faded, and she said softly, "I wonder if they often happen—marriages like ours."

"Tell me about it."

"Nothing to tell. It's just as if it's always been, and every minute it seems fresh."

"No," Helen said consideringly, "I shouldn't think it often happens. I've come for a pound of butter, please."

"How's Mrs. Caniper?"

"She's better, but I think she would be rather glad to die. I let her make a cake yesterday, and it did her good. Come and see her soon."

"I will. Let's go to the dairy. Will you have it in halves or quarters? Look at my new stamp!"

"What is it meant to be?"

"Well! It's a Shetland pony, of course."

"I like the pineapple better. I don't think a pony seems right on butter. I'll have the pineapple."

"John says there's as much sense in one as in the other, because we don't get butter from either of them."

"The pineapple is food, though."

"So's the pony, by some accounts!" She leaned in her old attitude against a shelf, and eyed Helen nervously. "Talking of ponies, have you seen anything of these ghostly riders?"

"I don't know what they are."

"That's what my—our—shepherd calls them. He saw them late one night, a while back. One was a woman, he said, and the air was cold with them and set him sneezing. That's what he says."

"It was some of the wild ponies, I suppose."

"Maybe."

"You don't think it was really ghosts?"

"No, for I've seen them myself." She paused. "I haven't said anything to John, but I'm wondering if I ought."

"Why not?"

Lily's gaze widened in her attempt to see what Helen's point of view would be and she spoke slowly, that, if possible, she might not offend.

"It was George Halkett I saw. There was no woman, but he was leading one horse and riding another. It was one night when John was late on the moor and I went to look for him. George didn't see me. I kept quiet till he'd gone by. There was a side saddle on the led horse."

"Well?" Helen said.

"That's all. I thought you ought to know."

In that moment Helen hated Lily. "Is it Miriam you're hinting at?" she asked on a high note.

"Yes, it is. You're making me feel mean, but I'm glad I've told you. It's worried me, and John—I didn't like to tell John, for he has a grudge against the man, and he might have made trouble before he need."

"I think that's what you're doing," Helen said.

"That may be. I took the risk. I know George Halkett. Miriam, having a bit of fun, might find herself landed in a mess. I'm sorry, Helen. I hope I'm wrong."

Helen was half ashamed to hear herself asking, "How late was it?"

"About twelve."

"But I'm awake half the night. I should have heard. Besides—would there be any harm?"

"Just as much as there is in playing with fire," Lily said.

"'Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth,'" Helen said, looking at the ground.

"Yes, but there's more than a little fire in Miriam, and George Halkett's a man, you know."

Helen raised her head and said, "We've lived here all our lives, and we have been very lonely, but I have hardly spoken to a man who was not gentle. John and Rupert and Zebedee and Daniel, all these—no one has spoken roughly to us. It makes one trustful. And George is always kind, Lily."

"Yes, but Miriam—she's not like you."

"She's much more beautiful."

Lily's laughter was half a groan. "That won't make George any gentler, my dear."

"Won't it?"

Lily shook her head. "But perhaps there's nothing in it. I'm sorry to have added to your worries, but Miriam's so restless and discontented, and I thought—"

"Ah," Helen interrupted gladly, "but lately she has been different. Lately she has been happier. Oh!" She saw where her words had led her, and with a little gesture of bewilderment she turned and walked away.

Perhaps, after all, the things that happened were not necessarily best, and for the first time Helen felt a blind anger against the unknown. In a moment of sharp vision, she saw what this vaguely concentrated life had done for her and Miriam, and she wondered by whose law it had been decreed that no human being could have a destiny unconditioned by some one else, and though she also saw that this law was the glory as well as the tragedy of life, she rebelled against it now, lest the radiant being whom she loved should be dishonoured or disillusioned.

Helen's firm curved lips took a harder line as she went slowly home, for it seemed to her that in an active world the principle of just going on left all the foes unconquered and ready for the next victim who should pass that way.

She slept fitfully that night, and once she woke to a sound of galloping on the moor. She knew it was made by more animals than two, yet her heart beat quickly, and her thoughts sprang together to make a picture of George Halkett leading a horse without a rider through the night, waiting in the darkness with his ears stretched for the sound of one coming through the heather.

She started up in bed, for the mysterious allurement of George's image was strong enough to make her understand what it might be for Miriam, and she held herself to the bed lest she should be tempted to play the spy; yet, had she brought herself to open her sister's door, she would have been shamed and gladdened by the sight of that pretty sleeper lying athwart her bed in profound unconsciousness.

Miriam, whose heart was still untouched by God or man, could lie and sleep soundly, though she knew George waited for her on the moor. The restlessness that had first driven her there had sent her home again, that, by a timely abstention, she might recover the full taste of adventure, and that, by the same means, George might learn her worth. She was a little puzzled by his behaviour, and she began to find monotony in its decorum. According to his promise, he had taught her to ride, and while all her faculties were bent on that business, she hardly noticed him, but with confidence in her own seat and Charlie's steadiness, there came freedom to look at George, and with it the desire to rule the expression of his face and the modulations of his voice.

He would not be beguiled. "I'm teaching you to ride," he said, and though she mocked him he was not stirred to quarrel. She was temporarily incapable of realizing that while she learnt to ride, he learnt to honour her, and found safety for himself and her in silence; nor, had she realized it, would she have welcomed it. What she wanted was the pleasure of being hunted and seeing the hunter discomfited, and though she could not get that from him, she had a new joy when Charlie carried her strongly and safely across the moor; again she knew the feeling of passing through a void, of sailing on a thunder-cloud without hope of rescue and careless of it, and she paid a heavy price when she decided that it would do George good to wait in vain for her. She would not have him disrespectful, but she desired him ardent; she wished to see that stubbornly set mouth open to utter longings, and, when she went to bed after a dull day, she laughed to think of how he waited and stared into the gloom.

A fortnight passed before she stole out on a misty night and at the appointed place found him like a grey carved figure on a grey carved horse. Only his lips moved when she peered at him through the mist. He said, "This is the fifteenth night. If you'd waited till tomorrow, you wouldn't have found me here."

"George," she said, with her face close to his knee, "how unkind you are to me. And, oh, George, do you really think I should have cared?"

In the mist, she, too, had the look of one not made of flesh and blood, but she had no likeness to some figure carved: she was the spirit of the mist with its drops on her hair, a thing intangible, yet dowered with power to make herself a torment. So she looked, but Halkett had felt the touch of her, and taking her by the wrist, he dragged her upwards while he bent down to her.

"You—you—!" he panted.

"You're hurting, George!"

"What do I care? I haven't seen you for two weeks. I've been—been starving for you."

She spoke coolly, with a ringing quality in her tones. "You would see me better if you didn't come so near."

Immediately he loosened her without looking at her, and she stood chafing her hands, hating his indifference, though she knew it was assumed, uncertain how to regain her supremacy. Then she let instinct guide her, and she looked a little piteous.

"Don't be rough with me. I didn't mean—I don't like you to be rough with me."

He was off his horse and standing by her at those words, and, still watchful for rebuffs, he took her hand and stroked it gently.

"Did I hurt you, then?" he said.

"Yes. Why are you like that?" She lifted her head and gave him the oval face, the dark, reproachful eyes like night.

"Because I'm mad for you—mad for you. Little one—you make me mad. And you'll never marry me. I know that. And I'm a fool to let you play the devil with me. I know that, too. A mad fool. But you—you're in my blood."

Softly she said, "You never told me that before. You needn't scold me so. How should I know you wanted that?"

"You knew I loved you."

"No. I knew you liked me and I hoped—"

He bent his head to listen.

"I hoped you loved me."

His words came thickly, a muddy torrent. "Then marry me, marry me, Miriam. Marry me. I want—I can't—You must say you'll marry me."

Keeping her eyes on him, she moved slowly away, and from behind Charlie's back she laughed with a genuine merriment that wounded inexpressibly.

"You're funny, George," she said. "Very funny. At present I have no intention of doing anything but riding Charlie."

Through a mist doubled and coloured by his red rage, he watched her climb into the saddle and, before she was fairly settled in it, he gave the horse a blow that sent him galloping indignantly out of sight.

Halkett did not care if she were thrown, for his anger and his passion were confounded into one emotion, and he would have rejoiced to see her on the ground, her little figure twisted with her fall, but he did not follow her. He went home in the rain that was now falling fast, and when the mare was stabled he brewed himself a drink that brought oblivion.



CHAPTER XXIII

Helen waked, that night, from a short deep sleep, to hear the falling of heavy rain and sharp gusts of wind that bowed the poplars. As the storm strengthened, raindrops were blown on to her pillow, and she could hear the wind gathering itself up before it swept moaning across the moor and broke with a miserable cry against the walls. She hoped Mildred Caniper slept through a wailing that might have a personal note for her, and as she prepared to leave the room and listen on the landing, she thought she heard a new sound cutting through the swish of the rainfall and the shriek of wind. It was a smaller sound, as though a child were alone and crying in the night, and she leaned from her window to look into the garden. The rain wetted her hair and hands and neck, while she stared into varying depths of blackness—the poplars against the sky, the lawn, like water, the close trees by the wall—and as she told herself that the wind had many voices, she heard a loud, unwary sob and the impact of one hard substance on another.

Some one was climbing the garden wall, and a minute later a head rose above the scullery roof. It was Miriam, crying, with wet clothes clinging to her, and Helen called out softly.

"Oh, is that you?" she answered, and laughed through a tangled breath. "I'm drenched."

"Wait! I'll go into Phoebe and help you through."

"There's a chair here. I left it. I'm afraid it's ruined!"

Helen entered the other room as Miriam dropped from the window-ledge to the floor.

"Don't make a noise. We mustn't wake her. Oh, oh, you look—you look like rags!"

Miriam sat limply; she shook with cold and sobs and laughter. Water dripped from every part of her, and when Helen helped her up, all the streams became one river.

Helen let go of the cold hands and sank to the bed. "There must be gallons of it! And you—!"

"I'm frozen. Mop it up. Towels—anything. I'll fling my clothes out of the window. They are quite used to the scullery roof."

"Speak quietly. Whisper. She may hear you!"

"That would be—the devil, wouldn't it? Good thing Rupert isn't here! Put something at the bottom of the door. Lock it. My fingers are numb. Oh, dear, oh, dear, I can't undo my things."

"Let me. You ought to have hot water, and there's no fire. I'll rub you down. And your hair! Wring it out, child. What were you doing on the moor?"

"Just amusing myself."

"With George Halkett?"

"We-ell, I was with him in the spirit, oh, yes, I was; but in the flesh, only for a very little while. What made you think I was with him?"

"Something I heard. Are you warmer now?"

"Much warmer. Give me my nightgown, please. Oh, it's comfortable, and out there I was so cold, so cold. Oh," she cried out, "I should love to set his farm on fire!"

"Hush!"

"But I would! If I'd had matches, and if it hadn't been raining, and if I'd thought about it, I would have done it then."

"But what did he do to you?" Helen's eyes were sombre. "He surely didn't touch you?"

Miriam's arrested laughter marked their differences. She remembered George Halkett's hand on hers and the wilder, more distant passion of his arms clasping her among the larches.

"It wasn't that," she said. "He asked me to marry him—and it wasn't that. I met him to go riding, and I think I must have teased him. Yes, I did, because he hit my horse, and I couldn't hold him, and I fell off at last. I lay in the heather for a long time. It was wet, Helen, and I was all alone. I cried at first. I would have killed him if he had come near. I would, somehow, but he never came. He didn't care, and I might have been killed, just because I teased him. Then I cried again. Would you mind coming into bed with me to keep me warm? I'm glad I'm here. I lost my way. I thought I should be out there all night. It was dark, and the wind howled like demons, and the rain, the rain—! Closer, Helen."

"Did he frighten you?"

"Of course he didn't. I was angry. Oh"—the small teeth gritted on each other—"angry! But I'll pay him out. I swear I will."

"Don't swear it. Don't do it. I wish Rupert were here. I'm glad Zebedee gave me Jim."

"Pooh! Do you think George will break into the house? Jim would fly at him. I'd like that. He's got to be paid out."

Helen moved in the bed. "What's the good of doing that?"

"The good! He made me bite the earth. I joggled and joggled, and at last I went over with a bump, and when I bumped I vowed I'd hurt him."

"You needn't keep that kind of vow."

"Then what was the good of making it? We always keep our promises."

"Promise not to see him any more."

"Don't worry. I've finished with him—very nearly. Will you stay with me all night? There's not much room, but I want you to keep hold of me. I'm warm now, and so beautifully sleepy."

Her breathing became even, but once it halted to let her say, "He's a beast, but I can't help rather liking him."

She slept soon afterwards, but Helen lay awake with her arm growing stiff under Miriam's body, and her mind wondering if that pain were symbolic of what wild folly might inflict.

It was noticeable that Miriam did not venture on the moor in the days that followed, but every day Helen went there with Jim, who needed exercise and was only restrained from chasing sheep by timely employment of his energy, and every day Halkett, watching the house, saw these two sally forth together. They went at an easy pace, the woman with her skirt outblown, her breast fronting the wind, her head thrown back, her hands behind her, the dog marching by her side, and in their clearness of cut, their pale colour, for which the moor was dado and the sky frieze, he found some memory of sculptures he had seen and hardly heeded, ancient things with the eternity of youth on them, the captured splendour of moving limb and passionate brain. Then he was aware of fresh wind and fruitful earth, but as she passed out of sight, he was imprisoned again by stifling furies. He had begun to love Miriam with a sincerity that wished to win and not to force her; he had controlled the wild heritage of his fathers and tried to forget the sweetness of her body in the larch-wood; he was determined not to take what she would not give him gladly; and now, by her own act, she had changed his striving love into desire—desire to hurt, to feel her struggling in his arms, hating his kisses, paying a bitter price for her misuse of him. He had a vicious pleasure in waiting for the hour when he should feel her body straining away from his, and each night, as he sat drinking, he lived through that ecstasy; each day, as he went about his work, he kept an eye on the comings and goings of the Canipers, waiting for his chance. Miriam did not appear, and that sign of fear inflamed him; but on Sunday morning she walked on the moor with Rupert, holding him by the arm and making a parade of happiness, and in the afternoon, Daniel was added to the train.

Monday came, and no small, black-haired figure darted from the house: only Helen and the majestic dog walked together like some memory of a younger world.

His mind held two pictures as he sat alone at night, and, corresponding to them, two natures had command of him. He saw Helen like dawn and Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for Miriam that he might mutter foul language, like loathed caresses.

Drink and desire and craving for peace were all at work in him. The dreams he had been building were broken by a callous hand, and he sat among the ruins. He could laugh, now, at his fair hopes, but they had had their part in him, and he could never go back to the days when he rode and drank and loved promiscuously, with a light heart. She had robbed, too, when she cast down his house, but there was no end to her offence, for when, out of coarser things, this timid love had begun to creep, it had been thrown back at him with a gibe.

He was in a state when the strongest suggestion would have its way with him. He wanted to make Miriam suffer; he wanted to be dealt with kindly, and he had a pitiful and unconscious willingness to take another's mould. So, when he saw Helen on the moor, the sneering born of her distance from him changed slowly to a desire for nearness, and he remembered with what friendliness they had sat together in the heather one autumn night, and how peace had seemed to lie upon them both. A woman like that might keep a man straight, he thought, and when she stopped to speak to him one morning, her smile was balm to his hurts.

She looked at him in her frank way. "You don't look well, George."

"Oh—I'm all right," he said, hitting his gaiters with his stick.

"It's a lovely day," she said, "and you have some lambs already. I hope the snow won't come and kill them."

"Hope not. We're bound to lose some of them, though."

Why, he asked himself angrily, was she not afraid of him who was planning injury to her sister? She made him feel as though he could never injure any one.

"You haven't noticed my dog," she said.

"Yes—" he began. He had been noticing him for days, marching beside her against the sky. "He's a fine beast."

"Isn't he?" Her finger-tips were on Jim's head.

"You want a dog now there's no man in your house."

She laughed a little as she said, "And he feels his responsibility, don't you, Jim?"

"Come here, lad," Halkett called to him. "Come on. That's right!"

"He seems to like you."

"I never knew the dog that didn't; but don't make him too soft, or he'll be no good to you."

"Well," she said gaily, "you are not likely to break into our house!"

His flush alarmed her, for it told her that she had happened on the neighbourhood of his thoughts, and her mind was in a flurry to assert her innocence and engender his, but no words came to her, and her hand joined his in fondling the dog's head.

"Well, I must be going on," George said, and after an uncertain instant he walked away, impoverished and enriched.

Helen sat down heavily, as though one of her own heart-beats had pushed her there, and putting her arm round Jim's neck, she leaned her head on him.

"Jim," she said, "don't you wish Zebedee would come back? If I hadn't promised—" She looked about her. George had disappeared, and near by grey sheep were eating with a concentration that disdained her and the dog. It was a peaceful scene, and a few early lambs dotted it with white. "It's silly to feel like this," she said. "Let's go and find Miriam."

She was discovered in the garden, digging.

"But why?" Helen asked.

"I must have exercise." Her hair was loosened, her teeth worked on her under-lip as her foot worked on the spade. "You don't know how I miss my riding!"

"I've just seen George."

"Have you?"

"I spoke to him."

"How brave! How did he look?"

"Horrid. His eyes were bloodshot."

"Ah! He has been drinking. That's despair. Perhaps it's time I tried to cheer him up."

"Don't make him angry."

"I'm not going to. I'm not vindictive. I'm rather nice. I've recovered from my rage, and now I wouldn't set his farm on fire for worlds. Why, if I saw it blazing, I should run to help! But I'd like to tease him just a little bit."

"I wish you wouldn't. I think it's rather mean, he looks so miserable. And I'm sure it isn't safe. Please, Miriam."

"I can take care of myself, my dear."

"I'm not so sure."

"Oh, yes, I can. I'm going to make it up with him. I must, or I shall never be able to walk about the moor again."

"I wish you didn't live here," Helen said.

"Well, so do I. But it's not for long." She was working vigorously, and, with her peculiar faculty for fitting her surroundings, she looked as though she had been begotten of sun and rain and soil. Helen took delight in her bright colour, strong hands and ready foot.

"I wonder," Helen said thoughtfully, "if Uncle Alfred would take you now."

"Do you want to save me from George's clutches?"

"Yes, I do."

Miriam threw back her head and laughed. "You funny little thing! You're rather sweet. George hasn't a clutch strong enough to hold me. You can be sure of that."

She was herself so certain that she waylaid him on the moor next day, but to her amazement he did not answer her smile of greeting and passed on without a word.

"George!" she called after him.

"Well?" He looked beyond her at the place where green moor met blue sky: he felt he had done with her, and Helen's trust had taken all the sweetness from revenge.

"Aren't you going to say good-morning? I came on purpose to see you."

"You needn't trouble," he said and, stealing a look at her, he weakened.

"But I need." He was wavering, she knew, and her mouth and eyes promised laughter, her body seemed to sway towards him.

"I want—I want to forgive you, George."

"Well, I'm—"

"Yes, you are, no doubt, but I don't want to be, so I forgive my trespassers, and I've come to make friends."

"You've said that before."

"I've always meant it. Must I hold out my arm any longer?"

"No." She was too tempting for his strength. He took her by the shoulders, looked greedily at her, saw the shrinking he had longed for and pressed his mouth on hers. She gave a cry that made a bird start from the heather, but he held her to him and felt her struggling with a force that could not last, and in a minute she dropped against him as helplessly as if she had been broken.

He turned her over on his arm. "You little devil!" he said, and kissed her lips again.

Her face was white and still: she did not move and he could not guess that behind the brows gathered as if she were in pain, her mind ransacked her home for a weapon that might kill him, and saw the carving-knife worn to a slip of steel that would glide into a man's body without a sound. She meant to use it: she was kept quiet by that determination, by the intensity of her horror for caresses that, unlike those first ones in the larch-wood, marked her as a thing to be used and thrown away.

She knew his thoughts of her, but she had her own amid a delirium of hate, and when he released her, she was shaking from the effort of her control.

"Now I've done with you," he said, and she heard him laugh as he went away.

She longed to scream until the sky cracked with the noise, and she had no knowledge of her journey home. She found herself sitting at the dinner-table with Helen, and heard her ask, "Don't you feel well?"

"No. I'm—rather giddy."

She watched the knife as Helen carved, and the beauty of its slimness gave her joy; but suddenly the blade slipped, and she saw blood on Helen's hand and, rushing from the table to the garden, she stood there panting.

"It's nothing," Helen shouted through the window. "Just a scratch."

"Oh, blood! It's awful!" She leaned on the gate and sobbed feebly, expecting to be sick. She could not make anybody bleed: it was terrible to see red blood.

Trembling and holding to the banisters, she went upstairs and lay down on her bed, and presently, through her subsiding sobs, there came a trickle of laughter born of the elfish humour which would not be suppressed. She could not kill George, but she must pay him out, and she was laughing at herself because she had discovered his real offence. It was not his kisses, not even his disdain of what he took, though that enraged her: it was his words as he cast her off and left her. She sat up on the bed, clenching her small hands. How dared he? How dared he? She could not ignore those words and she would let him know that he had been her plaything all the time.

"All the time, George, my dear," she muttered, nodding her black head. "I'll just write you a little letter, telling you!"

Kneeling before the table by her window, she wrote her foolish message and slipped it inside her dress: then, with a satisfaction which brought peace, she lay down again and slept.

She waked to find Helen at her bedside, a cup of tea in her hand.

"Oh—I've been to sleep?"

"Yes. It's four o'clock. Are you better?"

"Yes."

"Lily is here. John's gone to town. It's market-day."

"Market-day!" She laughed. "George will get drunk. Perhaps he'll fall off his horse and be killed. But I'd rather he was killed tomorrow. Perhaps a wild bull will gore him—right horn, left horn, right horn—Oh, my head aches!"

"Don't waggle it about."

"I was just showing you what the bull would do to George."

"Leave the poor man alone."

But that was what Miriam could not do, and she waited eagerly for the dark.

The new green of the larches was absorbed into the blackness of night when she went through them silently. She had no fear of meeting George, but she must wait an opportunity of stealing across the courtyard and throwing the letter through the open door, so she paused cautiously at the edge of the wood and saw the parlour lights turning the cobbles of the yard to lumps of gold. There was no sign of Mrs. Biggs, but about the place there was a vague stir made up of the small movements and breathings of the horses in the stable, the hens shut up for the night, the cows in their distant byres. Branches of trees fretted against each other and the stream sang, out of sight.

The parlour light burned steadily, no figure came into view, and, lifting her feet from her slippers, Miriam went silently towards the door. She had thrown in the letter and was turning back, when she heard nailed boots on the stones, a voice singing, a little thickly, in an undertone. She caught her breath and ran, but as she fumbled for her slippers in the dark, she knew she was discovered. He had uttered a loud, "Ha!" of triumph, his feet were after her, and she squealed like a hunted rabbit when he pounced on her.

It was very dark within the wood. His face was no more than a blur, and her unseen beauty was powerless to help her. She was desperate, and she laughed.

"George, you'll spoil my little joke. I've left a letter for you. It's a shame to spoil it, Georgie, Porgie."

His grasp was hurting her. "Where is the letter?" he asked in a curious, restrained voice.

"In the doorway. Let me go, George. I'll see you tomorrow. George—please!"

"No," he said thoughtfully, carefully, "I don't think I shall let you go. Come with me—come with me, pretty one, and we'll read your love-letter together."



CHAPTER XXIV

While these things happened at Halkett's Farm, Helen sat sewing in the schoolroom. Mildred Caniper had been in bed all day, as often happened now, and there Miriam was supposed to be, on account of that strange giddiness of hers.

Helen worked at the fashioning of a dress in which Zebedee should think her fair and the lamplight shone on the pale grey stuff strewing the table and brought sparks from the diamonds on her hand: the clipping of the scissors made a cheerful sound, and Jim, as he sat before the fire, looked up at her sometimes with wise and friendly eyes.

It was late when she began to be oppressed by the quiet of the house. It was as though some one had just stopped whispering and would begin again. She felt that she was watched by the unseen, and the loudness of her own movements shocked her, but she worked on, using the scissors stealthily and starting if a coal fell in the grate.

Surely there was some one standing outside the door? She changed her seat to face it. Surely eyes were peering through the window? She rose and drew the curtains with a suddenness that made Jim growl.

"Be quiet, dog!" She stood and listened. The night held its breath, the stored impressions of the old house took shape and drew close and, though they did not speak, their silent pressure was full of urging, ominous and discreet.

She folded her work and put out the light, told Jim to follow her up the stairs, and trod them quietly. It was comforting to see the Pinderwells on the landing, but she had no time for speech with them. She was wondering if death had come and filled the house with this sense of presences, but when she bent over Mildred Caniper's bed she found her sleeping steadily.

On the landing, she let out a long breath. "Oh, Jane, I'm thankful."

She went into Miriam's room and saw that the bed was empty and the window wide. She looked out, and there was a chair on the scullery roof and, as she leant, trembling, against the sill, she heard the note of the hall clock striking eleven. That was a late hour for the people of the moor, and she must hasten. She was sure that the house had warned her, and, gathering her wits, she posted Jim at the bottom of the stairs and ran out, calling as she ran. She had no answer. The lights of Brent Farm were all out and she went in a dark, immobile world. There was no wind to stir the branches of the thorn-bushes, the heather did not move unless she pressed it, and her voice floated to the sky where there were no stars. Then the heavier shade of the larches closed on her, and when she left them and fronted Halkett's Farm, there was one square of light, high up, at the further end, to splash a drop of gold into the hollow.

Towards that light Helen moved as through thick black water. She carried her slippers in her hand and felt her feet moulded to the cobbles as she crossed the yard and stood below the open window. She listened there, and for a little while she thought her fears were foolish: she heard no more than slight human stirrings and the sound of liquid falling into a glass. Then there came Miriam's voice, loud and high, cutting the stillness.

"I'll never promise!"

There was another silence that held hours in its black hands.

"No? Well, I don't know that I care. But you're not going home. When the morning comes perhaps it'll be you begging me for a promise! Think it over. No hurry. There's all night." George was speaking slowly, saying each word as if he loved it. "And you're going to sit on my knee, now, and read this letter to me. Come."

Helen heard no more. She rushed to the front door and found it locked, and wasted precious seconds in shaking it before she abandoned caution and rushed noisily round the house where the kitchen door luckily yielded to her hand. Through a narrow passage and up narrow stairs she blundered, involved in ignorance and darkness, until a streak of light ran across her path and she almost fell into a room where Miriam stood with her back against the wall. She had the look of one who has been tortured without uttering a sound and, in the strain of her dark head against the flowered wall, there was a determination not to plead.

Her face crumpled like paper at the sight of Helen.

"Oh," she said, smiling foolishly, "what—a good thing—you came."

She slipped as a picture falls, close to the wall, and there was hardly a thud as her body met the floor.

Helen did not stir: she looked at Miriam and at Halkett, who was sitting on the bed, and on him her gaze rested. His answered it, and while, for a moment, she saw the man beyond the beast, his life was enlightened by what was rare in her, and his mind, softened by passion to the consistency of clay, was stamped with the picture of her as she stood and looked at him. Vaguely, with uneasiness and dislike, he understood her value; it was something remote as heaven and less desired, yet it strengthened his sensual scorn of Miriam, and rising, he went and made a hateful gesture over her. Some exclamation came from him, and he stooped to pick her up and slake his thirst for kisses. He wanted to beat her about the face before he cast her out.

"Don't touch her!" Helen said in tones so quiet that he hesitated. "She has only fainted."

He laughed at that. "Don't think I'm worrying, but she's mine, and I'll do what I like with her."

He drew up her limp body and held it until it seemed to be merged into his own, and though his mouth was close on hers, he did not kiss it. His lips moved fast, but no words came, and he lowered her slowly and shakily to the floor. He turned to Helen, and she saw that all the colour had left his face.

"Go out!" he said, and pointed.

The clasp of her hands tightened, and while she looked up at him, she prayed vehemently. "O God, God," she thought, "let me save her. O God, what shall I do? O God, God, God!"

"Go out," he said. "I'm going to keep her here till she'll be glad to be my wife, and then it'll be my turn to laugh. She can go home in the morning."

"I want to sit down," Helen said.

She looked for a chair and sat on it, and he dropped to the bed, which gave out a loud groaning sound. He hid his face in his hands and rocked himself to and fro.

"She's tortured me," he muttered, and glared angrily at Helen.

She rose and went to him, saying, "Yes, but she's only a little girl. You must remember that. And you're a man."

"Yes, by God!" he swore.

He raised both hands. "Get out of this!" he shouted. "She shall stay here tonight." The hands went to Helen's shoulders and forced her to her knees. "D'ye hear? I tell you she's made me mad!"

Helen was more pitiful than afraid. She hardly knew what she did, but she thought God was in the room.

"George, I'll do anything in the world for you if you'll give her up. Anything. You couldn't be so wicked. George, be quick. Before she wakes. Shan't we carry her out now? Shan't we?" She forgot his manhood, and saw him only as a big animal that might spring and must be soothed. "Let us do that before she knows. George—"

He looked half stupefied as he said childishly, "But I swore I'd have her, and I want her."

"But you don't love her. No, no, you don't." She laid a hand on his knee. "Why, you've known us all our lives."

"Ah!" He sprang up and past her and the spell of the soft hands and voice was broken. He sneered at her. "You thought you'd done it that time!"

"Yes," she said sadly, and put herself between him and Miriam. With her chin on her clasped hands, and her steady eyes, she seemed to be the thing he had always wanted, for the lack of which he had suffered, been tormented.

"George," she said, "I'll give you everything I have—"

He caught his breath. "Yourself?" he asked on an inspiration that held him astonished, eager and translated.

She looked up as if she had been blinded, then stiffly she moved her head. "What do you mean?"

"Give me yourself. Oh, I've been mad tonight—for days—she made me." He pointed to the limp and gracious figure on the floor and leaned against the bed-rail. "Mad! And you, all the time, out there on the moor against the sky. Helen, promise!"

Her voice had no expression when she said, "I promised anything you asked for. Bring some water."

But he still stood, dazed and trembling.

"Bring some water," she said again.

He spilt it as he carried it. "Why didn't I see before? I did see before. On the moor, I watched for you You're beautiful." His voice sank. "You're good."

She was not listening to him. She dabbled water on Miriam's brow and lips and chafed her hands, but still she lay as if she were glad to sleep.

"Poor little thing!" Helen said deeply and half turned her head. "Some of your brandy," she commanded. "She is so cold."

"I'll take her to the kitchen."

"Is that woman in the house?" she asked sharply.

"She's in bed, I suppose."

"She must have heard—she must have known—and she didn't help!"

He put a hand to his forehead. "No, she didn't help. I'd meant to give her up, and then—I found her here, and I'd been drinking."

"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" She twisted her hands together. "George, don't make me hate you."

"No," he said with a strange meekness. "Shall I take her to the kitchen? It'll be warm there, and the fire won't be out. I'll carry her."

"But I don't like you to touch her," Helen stated with a simplicity that had its fierceness.

"It's just as if she's dead," he said in a low voice, and at Helen's frightened gasp, he added—"I mean for me."

"Take her," she said, and when he had obeyed she sat on her heels and stared at nothing. For her, a mist was in the room, but through it there loomed the horrid familiarity of Halkett's bed, his washstand and a row of boots. Why was she here? What had she done? She heard him asking gently, "Aren't you coming?" and she remembered. She had promised to marry George because Miriam had been lying on the floor, because, years ago, the woman lying alone in Pinderwell House had brought the Canipers to the moor where George lived and was brutal and was going to marry her. But it could not be true, for, in some golden past, before this ugliness fell between her and beauty, she had promised to marry Zebedee. She held her head to think. No, of course she had given him no promise. They had come together like birds, like bees to flowers—

"Aren't you coming?" Halkett asked again.

She rose. Yes, here was her promised man. She had bought Miriam with a price. She stumbled after him down the stairs.

In the warmth of the kitchen, by the light of a glowing fire and a single candle, Miriam's eyelids fluttered and lay back.

"It's all right, darling," Helen said. "You're quite safe. You're with Helen, with Helen, dear."

Behind Miriam's eyes, thoughts like butterflies with wet wings were struggling to be free.

"Something happened. It was George. Has he gone away?"

"He isn't going to hurt you. He wants to take you home."

"Don't let him. We'll go together, Helen. Soon. Not yet. Take care of me. Don't leave me." She started up. "Helen! I didn't say I'd marry him. I wouldn't. Helen, I know I didn't!"

"You didn't, you didn't. He knows. He frightened you because you teased him so. He just frightened you. He's here—not angry. Look!"

He nodded at her clumsily.

"You see?"

"Yes. I'm glad. I'm sorry, George."

"It doesn't matter," he said.

He looked at Helen and she looked full at him and she knew, when he turned to Miriam, that he still watched over herself. She could recognize the tenderness and wonder in his eyes, but she could not understand how they had found a place there, ousting greed and anger for her sake, how his molten senses had taken an imprint of her to instruct his mind.

"Can you come now?" she said.

"Yes." Miriam stood up and laughed unsteadily. "How queer I feel! George—"

"It's all right," he said. "I'll take you home."

"But we're not afraid," Helen said. "There's nothing to be afraid of on the moor." All possibility of fear had gone: her dread had been for some uncertain thing that was to come, and now she knew the evil and found in it something almost as still as rest.

In the passage, he separated her from Miriam. "I want to speak to you."

"Yes. Be careful."

"Tonight. In your garden. I'll wait there. Come to me. Promise that, too."

"Oh, yes, yes," she said. "That, too."

He watched them go across the yard, their heads bent towards each other, and Helen's pale arm like a streak on Miriam's dress. He heard their footsteps and the shifting of a horse in the stables, and a mingled smell of manure and early flowers crept up to him. The slim figures were now hardly separable from the wood, and they were frail and young and touching. He looked at them, and he was sorry for all the unworthy things he had ever done. It was Helen who made him feel like that, Helen who shone like a star, very far off, but not quite out of reach. She was the only star that night. Not one showed its face among the clouds, and there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound and to float among the clouds.

"It's like being converted," he told himself, and he followed slowly across the moor.



CHAPTER XXV

As the girls passed under the trees, Miriam began to cry.

"Helen, if you hadn't come!"

"But I did."

"Yes, yes. To see you there! It was—oh! And then I fainted. What did you do to him?"

"We needn't talk about it. And don't cry." She was afraid of having to hate this daring, helpless being who clung to her; yet she could hate no one who needed her, and she said tenderly, "Don't cry. It's over now."

"Yes. I've lost my handkerchief."

"Here's mine."

"You're not angry with me, are you? How did you know I'd gone?"

"I think the house told me. Oh, here's the moor. How good to get to it out of that pit. Come quickly. Notya—"

"I can't come faster. Tell me what you said to him. Nothing I said was any good."

"I managed him."

"And I couldn't. Suppose he catches me again."

"He won't. Can't you understand that he may not want you any more? Let us get home."

"I'm doing my best. I wish I were a man. A woman can't have fun."

"Fun!"

"Oh, you're so good! I meant it for fun, and now he'll come after me again. Of course he wants me. He's in love with me."

"There's love and love," Helen said.

"And if you subtract one from the other—I don't know what I'm saying—there may be nothing left. If George does that little sum in the morning—"

"I think it's done already."

"I hope so. I'm miserable. I wish the sea would come up and wash me and make me forget. You're not holding me so lovingly as you did. In the kitchen you were sweet."

"Is that better? I think the moor is like the sea. It's a great, clean bath to plunge into. And here's the garden. That's another bath, a little one, so dark and cold and peaceful. And the poplars. Soon there will be leaves on them." She stopped with a thin cry. "What has happened? I left the house in darkness, and look now!" Every window gave out light that fell in differing patterns on the grass. "Oh! what is it?" For an instant she thought the whole night's work must be some evil fancy, this brilliance as well as the sordid horror at the farm, and then, as Miriam cried, "Is it the house on fire?" the other rushed across the lawn, leaping the golden patches as though, indeed, they might have burned her.

Miriam tried to follow, but, weakness overcoming her, she sat down on the lawn. Half drowsily, she was interested in the windows, for their brightness promised gaiety within the house and she bent her ear expectantly for music. There ought to have been music, sweet and tinkling, and people dancing delicately, but the lights were not darkened by moving figures, and the only sound was Helen's voice anxiously calling her in.

Miriam was indifferent to the anxiety, and she did not want to rise: she was comfortable on the soft, damp earth, and the night had been so long that the morning must be near. If she stayed there, she would be spared the trouble of going to bed and getting up again, and when Helen called once more, she heard the voice as from a great way off, and answered sleepily, "Yes, I'm coming," but the next minute she was annoyed to find Helen standing over her.

"Why didn't you come in? It's Notya. She has put lights in every room. She was afraid of the dark, she says. She couldn't find us. She has been talking—oh, talking. Come and let her see you."

"I wish things wouldn't go round and round."

"You must go to bed, but first you must let her see you. She thinks you are not coming back."

"And I nearly didn't. I won't see her if she's ill."

"You must. She isn't—green, or anything."

"I'm ill, too. I'm giddy."

"Oh, can't you do this to help me? Haven't I helped you?"

"Oh, yes, you have! I'll come, but help me up." Her laughter bubbled out. "I'm afraid you're having rather a busy night!"

Mildred Caniper was sitting on the edge of the bed. Swinging a foot, and with her curly hair hanging to her shoulders, she had a very youthful look.

"So she has come back," she said. Her voice was small and secret. "I thought she wouldn't. She is like Edith. Edith went. And I was glad. Yes, for a little while." Her tones grew mournful and she looked at the floor. "But it hasn't been a happy thing for me. No. I have been very unhappy."

Miriam stood at the door and, holding on to it, she stared with fear and fascination at the strange woman on the bed, and from her throat there came a tiny sound, like the beating of a little animal's heart. "Oh, oh, oh! Oh, oh, oh!"

Helen was murmuring to her stepmother: "Yes, dear, yes. Get into bed. It's late, and we are all going to bed. You are getting cold, you know. Let me lift your feet up. There! That's better."

"Yes." Mildred lay passive. She seemed to think and, in the pause, Miriam's ejaculations changed to sighs that ceased as Mildred said in the sharp tones they welcomed now, "What are you both doing here? Go to bed. Helen, don't fuss. And let us have no more of this wandering about at night."

They left the room like threatened children, and on the landing they took each other's hands.

"Is she mad?" Miriam whispered. "Are we all mad? What's happening to us all?"

"I think she was just—dazed. Come to bed. I'll help you to undress."

"Once before you did. That night it rained—"

"Yes. Don't talk."

"But if she goes out of her mind, will it be my fault? Because of not finding us, and the house all dark? Will that be my fault, too?"

Helen was busy with strings and buttons. "How can we tell who does things?"

"She was talking about Mother. I wish I had a real, comfortable mother now. It was horrible, but I wanted to hear more. I did, Helen. Didn't you?"

"No. I don't like seeing souls if there are spots on them. Shall I put out the light?"

"Yes. Now the darkness is going round. It will whirl me to sleep. I want to go away. Do you think Uncle Alfred—? I'm frightened of this house. And there's George. I think I'd better go away in case he comes after me again."

A whistle like the awakening chirrup of a bird sounded from the garden, and Helen's voice quavered as she said, "We'll talk about it in the morning."

Quietly she shut the door and went downstairs. She had a lighted candle in one hand, and a great shadow moved beside her—went with her to the drawing-room, and stayed there while she wrote a letter to the accompaniment of George's persistent whistling. She hardly needed it, and it stopped abruptly as she passed through the long window to the garden.

Among the poplars she found him waiting and at once she was aware of some change in him. His head was thrust forward from his shoulders, and he searched greedily for her face.

"I thought you'd given me the slip," he muttered.

She frowned a little at his use of words, yet what had he to do with her? She looked up at the bare branches and thought of Zebedee and the masts of ships.

"This must be a secret," she said through stiffening lips. "Come further from the house." She led him to the garden door and opened it. "Out here," she whispered.

The moor was like a tired, simple man asleep, yet it still kept its quality of water, buoyant, moving and impetuous, and she felt that it had swung her here and there amid its waves for many hours, and now had left her on a little shore, battered and bereft, but safe.

"I can't stay," she said softly.

"I thought you wouldn't come," he answered. He did not understand her: she gave no sign of pleading or withdrawal: he was sure she had no fear, and another certainty was born in him.

"I can trust you," he said with a sigh of peace.

"Yes."

"I thought you wouldn't come," he said again.

"But I'm here, you see."

His voice rose. "I'd have got in."

"It would have been quite easy."

"Weren't you afraid?" he asked, and he found a memory of Miriam in her laughter. "No, I wasn't afraid."

"But you're going to marry me."

"That was the bargain."

Her passivity angered him. This dignity of submission put him in the wrong. She seemed to be waiting patiently and without anxiety for her release. Why should he give it? How could he give it? Would he deny God in God's own presence?

He turned to look at her, and as they stood side by side, a foot of earth between them, he could almost hear her breathing. Her smoothly-banded hair and the clear line of brow and nose and chin mocked him with their calm. He spoke loudly, but his voice dropped as the star to which he likened her might shoot across the heavens and disappear.

"You make me think—of stars," he said.

Again she looked upward, and her tilted face was like a waning moon. "There are no stars tonight. I must go in."

"But—tomorrow?" he said.

"Tomorrow?"

"I shall see you tomorrow?"

The repetition of the word gave her its meaning. She took the letter from her belt and held it out to him.

"No, no," he said.

"Won't you have it posted for me?"

"I—I thought it was for me," he stammered. "Yes, I'll have it posted."

"Will it go early?" she asked earnestly.

"I'll take it down tonight."

"Oh, there's no need of that."

"I'd like to do it," and touching his forehead with a childish gesture, he added, "I couldn't sleep."

"It's morning already," Helen said.

He looked eastward. "Hours of darkness yet."

"And you'll go down the road and back, before it's light. You needn't, George."

"I want to think of you," he answered simply, turning the letter in his hands.

She moved to the door and stood against it. "George—" she said. She had an impulse to tell him that his bargain was useless to him because she was a woman no longer. She had been changed from living flesh and blood to something more impalpable than air. She had promised to marry him, and she remained indifferent because, being no woman, she could not suffer a woman's pain; because, by her metamorphosis, there was no fear of that promise's fulfilment. It seemed only fair to tell him, but when he came to her, she shook her head.

"It was nothing," she murmured. Bulky of body, virile of sense, he was immature in mind, and she knew he would not understand.

"I must go now. Good-night."

"Don't go," he muttered.

She stood still, waiting for the words that laboured in him.

"I was mad," he said at last. "She makes me feel like that. You—you're different."

He wanted help from her, but she gave him none, and again there was a silence in which Jim came through the door and put his head into Helen's hand.

"Jim!" she said, "Jim!" Her thoughts went across a continent to blue water.

"I'd begun to love her," he explained, and moved from one foot to the other.

"George, I must go in."

"But I don't love her now," he added fiercely, with pride, almost with reassurance.

She would have laughed if she had heard him, but her numbness had passed by and all her powers were given to resisting the conviction that she was indeed Helen Caniper, born, to die, a woman; that Zebedee was on the sea, and had not ceased to love her, that she would have a tale to tell him on his return, and a dishonoured body to elude his arms, but she could not resist the knowledge, and under its gathering strength she cried out in a fury of pain that drove Halkett back a step.

"What is it?" he asked.

She did not answer. Her rage and misery left her weak and hopeless and though for a bright, flaming instant she had loathed him, she was now careless of him and of herself because nothing mattered any more.

She drooped against the door, and he approached her nervously, saying as he went, "You're tired. You ought to go to bed. I'll take you to the house."

That roused her and she looked at him. "No. Some one might hear."

"I can tread softly."

"Very well." She halted him among the poplars. "No further."

"I'll come tomorrow," he whispered.

"No, not tomorrow. Not until I tell you. I don't want any one to know. Don't come tomorrow."

"Then come to me," he said. "I wish you'd come to me. I'd like to see you coming through our wood and across the cobbles. And in the morning, the sun's on that side of the house. Helen," he pleaded, "will you come?" It was Miriam who had come before, a dark sprite, making and loving mischief, lowering him in his own regard until he had a longing to touch bottom and make her touch it, too; but if Helen came in her grey frock, slipping among the trees like silver light, he knew she would bring healing to his home and to his heart.

"Will you?" he begged. "Will you, Miss Helen? D'you remember how I used to call you that? Will you?"

"I don't know."

"But I want you so," he said; and when he would have touched her he found her gone.



CHAPTER XXVI

Her bargain had been made and must be kept and Zebedee would understand. He would not be angry with her: he had only been angry with her once, and he had always understood. He would feel her agony in that room at Halkett's Farm, with Miriam, white and stricken, on the floor, and George Halkett, hot and maddened, on the bed, and he would know that hers had been the only way.

These were her thoughts as she went about the house, hasping windows and bolting doors, with a dreary sense of the futility of caution.

"For you see, Jim, the horse is stolen already," she said.

She did not forget to bid Jane good-night; she undressed and laid her clothes neatly in their place, and without difficulty she dropped into a sleep as deep as her own trouble.

She had the virtues of her defects, a stoicism to match her resolutions, and she was angered when she rose and saw the reflection of eyes that had looked on sorrow. She shook her head at the person in the glass and, leaning from the window and finding the garden no less lovely for the traffic of the night, she was enspirited by that example, and ran downstairs to open the front door and let in the morning. Then she turned to face the business of another day.

She was amazed to find her stepmother in the kitchen, making pastry by the window, to see the fire burning heartily and the breakfast-things ready on a tray.

"What are you doing?" she demanded from the doorway.

Mildred Caniper looked round. Her eyes were very bright and Helen waited in dread of the garrulousness of last night, but Mildred spoke with the old incisive tongue, though it moved slowly.

"You can see what I am doing."

"But you ought not to do it."

"I refuse to be an invalid any longer."

"And all yesterday you were in bed."

"Yesterday is not today, and you may consider yourself second in command again. It is time I was about the house when you and Miriam choose to spend half the night on the moor. I was left in bed with a house unlocked."

"But Jim was there."

"Jim! Although Dr. Mackenzie gave you the dog, Helen, I have not all that faith in his invincibility."

Helen smiled her appreciation of that sentence, though she did not like her stepmother's looks.

"I would rather trust Jim's teeth than our bolts and locks, and I told him to take care of you."

"That was thoughtful of you!" Mildred said. She rolled her pastry, but it did not please her, and she squeezed the dough into a ball as she turned with unusual haste to Helen.

"You must not wander about at night alone."

"But on the moor—!" Helen protested.

"It's Miriam—Miriam—" the word came vaguely. "You must look after her."

"I do try," Helen said, and hearing the strangeness of her own voice she coughed and choked to cover it.

"What does that mean?"

"What?" Helen's hand was at her throat.

"You are trying to deceive me. Something has happened. Tell me at once!"

"I swallowed the wrong way," Helen said. "It's hurting still."

"I do not believe you."

"Oh, but, Notya, you must. You know I don't tell lies. Why should you be so much afraid for Miriam?"

"Because—Did I say anything? My head aches a little. In fact, I don't feel well." The rolling-pin fell noisily to the floor. "Tiresome!" she said, and sank into a chair.

When Helen returned with the medicine which Zebedee had left for such emergencies, she found her stepmother beside the rolling-pin. Her mouth was open and a little twisted, and she was heavy and unwieldy when Helen raised her body and made it lean against the wall.

"But she won't stay there," Helen murmured, looking at her. She was like a great doll with a distorted face, and while Helen watched her she slipped to the floor with the obstinacy of the inanimate.

Some one would have to go to Halkett's Farm. Helen stared at the rolling-pin and she thought her whole life had passed in tending Mildred Caniper and sending some one to Halkett's Farm. Yesterday she had done it, and the day before; today and tomorrow and all the days to come she would find her stepmother with this open, twisted mouth.

She forced her way out of this maze of thought and rushed out to see if George, by chance, were already on the moor, but he was not in sight, and she ran back again, through the kitchen, with a shirked glance for Mildred Caniper, and up the stairs to Miriam.

"I can't go!" Miriam cried. "I'll go for John, but I daren't go to Halkett's."

"John and Lily went with the milk this morning. You'll have to go for George. Be quick! She's lying there—"

"Nothing will make me go! How can you ask it?"

Helen longed to strike her. "Then I shall go, and you must stay with Notya," she said and, half-dressed, Miriam was hurried down the stairs. "And if you dare to leave her—!"

"I won't leave her," Miriam moaned, and sat with averted face.

Thus it was that George Halkett had his wish as the sun cleared blue mist from the larches, but Helen did not come stealing, shy and virginal, as he had pictured her; she bounded towards him like a hunted thing and stood and panted, struggling for her words.

He steadied himself against attack. No persuasion and no abuse would make him let her go. The road he had trodden in the night knew his great need of her and now she caught his senses, for her eyes had darkened, colour was in her cheeks, and she glowed as woman where she had shone as saint.

She did not see his offered hands. "It's Notya, again, George, please." She had a glimpse of Mrs. Biggs peering between window curtains, and her tongue tripped over the next words. "S-so will you—can you be very quick?"

"The doctor?"

"Yes. Dr. Mackenzie is away, but there's another there, and he must come."

He nodded, and he did not see her go, for he was in the stable harnessing the horse and shouting to a man to get the cart.

"You've got to drive to town like hell, William, and the sooner you bring the doctor the better for you."

"I'll have to change my clothes."

"You'll go as you are, God damn you, and you'll go now."

He waited until the cart was bowling towards the road before he followed Helen so swiftly that he saw her dress whisk through the garden door. He used no ceremony and he found her in the kitchen, where Miriam was sitting stiffly on a chair, her feet on one of its rungs, her neck and shoulders cream-coloured above the whiteness of her under-linen. He hardly looked at her and he did not know whether she went or stayed. He spoke to Helen:

"Do you want me to carry her upstairs? William's gone to town. I've come to help you."

"Then you've spoilt the game, George. It's always you who go to town and bring the doctor. Never mind. Yes. Carry her up. Don't step on the rolling-pin." She looked at it again. "She's not dead, is she?"

"No."

"What is it, then?"

He stooped to lift the heavy burden, and she heard him say a word mumblingly, as though ashamed of it.

She moved about the room, crying, "A stroke! It's ugly. It's horrid. A stroke! Why can't they say a blow?"

He could not bear the bitterness of her distress. "Don't, don't, my dear," he said, and startled her into quiet.

* * * * *

The doctor came and went, promising to return, and a nurse with large crowded teeth assumed control over the sick-room. There was little to be done; she sat on a chair by the window and, because of those excessive teeth, she seemed to smile continually at Mildred Caniper's mockery of death.

Outside, a cold rain was falling: it splashed on the laurel leaves by the gate and threw a shifting curtain across the moor. The fire in the room made small noises, as though it tried to talk; the nurse bent over her patient now and then, but Mildred Caniper did not move.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Miriam sat on her feet in the big armchair: she was almost motionless, like one who has been startled into a posture and dare not move lest her fear should take shape. The rain darkened the room and filled it with a sound of hissing; a kettle whistled on the fire, and there was a smell of airing linen.

Helen turned a sheet. "The nurse must have Christopher's bed," she said at last. "We must carry it in."

"Who?"

"You and I."

"I can't! I can't go in. I should—I should be sick! I can't. Helen, after last night—"

"Very well. Can you manage to go to Brent Farm and tell John? They ought to be at home now."

"But there's George."

"He won't hurt you."

"He'd speak to me if he saw me."

"No. He took no notice of you this morning."

"That was because I wasn't dressed."

Helen laughed rather weakly and for a long time.

"You're not really laughing!" Miriam cried. "This house is horrible. You making that noise, and Notya upstairs, and that hideous nurse grinning, and George prowling about outside. I can't stay here."

"Go to Brent Farm, then. You can tell John and stay there. Lily won't mind."

"Shall I? John would be angry."

Helen made no reply as she moved quietly and efficiently about the kitchen, preparing food, setting things on a tray, turning the linen, working quickly but with no sign of haste. The rain splattered on the gravel path outside and clicked sharply into some vessel which stood by the scullery door.

A voice came unhappily from the pale face blotted against the chair.

"Helen, what are you going to do about me?"

She turned in astonishment and stared at Miriam.

"You said we were to talk about it."

"I know." What held her silent was the realization that while she felt herself helpless, under the control of some omnipotent will, here was one who cried out to her as arbiter. It was strange and she wanted to laugh again but, refusing that easy comment, she came upon a thought which terrified and comforted her together. She was responsible for what she had done; Zebedee would know that, and he would have the right, if he had the heart, to blame her. A faint sound was caught in her throat and driven back. She had to be prepared for blame and for the anger which so endeared him, but the belief that she was not the plaything of malevolence gave her the dignity of courage.

"Helen," said the voice again.

"Yes. I wrote to Uncle Alfred yesterday—this morning. I shouldn't think he could be here tomorrow, but the next day, if he comes—"

But blame or anger, how small they were in the face of this common gash—this hurt! She shut a door in her brain, the one which led into that chamber where all lovely things bloomed among the horrors. And Zebedee, as she had always told him, was just herself: they shared.

"Oh, you've done that? How wonderful! But—it's like running away."

"I don't want you here."

There was an exclamation and a protest.

"Only because I couldn't be happy about you."

"Because of George? No, I don't see how I can stay here, but there's Notya."

"You're no use, you see."

"Oh—"

"If you can't even carry in that bed."

"I'll try to go in," she said, in a muffled voice.

"I can ask the nurse. I don't want you to stay, but try," she went on dispassionately, "try not to be silly any more. I shan't always be there to—save you."

"It was very dramatic."

"Yes; just like a story, wasn't it?"

"Don't be so unpleasant. I still feel ill. It was horrid to faint. I can't make out why Mrs. Biggs didn't stop you."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"N-no—"

"Neither do I."

"But I can't make out—"

"Never mind. What does it matter? It's over. For you it's over. But don't play with people's lives any more, and ruin them."

There was a pause, in which the room grew darker.

"Do you think," Miriam asked in an awed voice, "he minds so much?"

Helen moved the little clothes-horse and knelt before the fire and its heat burnt her face while her body shivered under a sudden cold. She thought of George, but not as an actor in last night's scenes; her memory swung back, as his had often done, to the autumn night when they sat together in the heather, and his figure and hers became huge with portent. She had thought he was the tinker, and so, indeed, he was, and he no doubt had mistaken her for Miriam, as latterly he had mistaken his own needs. No, she was not altogether responsible. And why had Rupert told her that tale? And why, if she must have a tinker, could she not desire him as Eliza had desired hers?

"Oh, no, no!" she said aloud and very quickly, and she folded her arms across her breast and held her shoulders, shrinking.

"I don't think so either," Miriam said.



CHAPTER XXVII

Uncle Alfred in a trap and Rupert on foot arrived at the same moment on Saturday, and while Rupert asked quick questions about Mildred Caniper, the other listened in alarm.

He was astonished to feel Helen's light touch leading him to the corner where the hats were hanging, to hear her low voice in his ear.

"Pretend that's why you've come!"

He whispered back, "Where is she?"

"In bed."

"Miriam?"

"No, no. Dressing up for you!"

"Ah," he said, relieved, but he felt he was plunged into melodrama. Nothing else could be expected of a family which had exiled itself mysteriously in such a wilderness, but he felt himself uncomfortably out of place and he straightened his tie and gave his coat a correcting pull before he went into the schoolroom, where John and Lily were sitting by the fire.

"We're all waiting for the doctor," Helen explained.

"Ah!" Uncle Alfred said again, on a different note. He clasped his hands behind his back and nodded, and in spite of this inadequate contribution he conveyed an impression of stiff sympathy, and gave the youthful gathering the reassurance of his age as they made a place for him by the fire.

"I'm jolly glad you're here," Rupert said cordially, and Uncle Alfred, not used to a conspirator's part, stole a glance at Helen. She was standing near him; her stillness was broken by constant tiny movements, like ripples on a lake; she looked from one face to another as though she anticipated and watched the thoughts behind, and was prepared to combat them.

"I wish you'd sit down," Lily said, as Helen went to the window and looked out.

"Yes, sit down, sit down," said Uncle Alfred, and he stood up, pointing to his chair.

"No; I'm listening, thank you," Helen said.

The nurse's heavy tramp thudded across the room above, and her steps had something in them of finality, of the closing of doors, the shutting down of lids, the impenetrability of earth.

Sitting next to John, with her arm in his, Lily moved a little. Her eyes were full of pity, not so much for the woman upstairs, or for the Canipers, as because the emotions of these people were not the heartily unmixed ones which she had suffered when her own mother died.

"He's a long time," Helen said. She went into the hall and passed Miriam, in a black dress, with her hair piled high and a flush of colour on her cheeks.

"He's in there," Helen said with a wave of her hand, and speaking this time of Uncle Alfred.

The front door stood open, and she passed through it, but she did not go beyond the gate. The moor was changelessly her friend, yet George was on it, and perhaps he, too, called it by that name. She was jealous that he should, and she did not like to think that the earth under her feet stretched to the earth under his, that the same sky covered them, that they were fed by the same air; yet this was not on account of any enmity, but because the immaterial distance between them was so great that a material union mocked it.

Evening was slipping into night: there was no more rain, but the ground smelt richly damp, and seemed to heave a little with life eager to be free; a cloud, paler than the night, dipped upon the moor above Brent Farm and rose again, like the sail of a ship seen on a dark sea. Then a light moving on the road caught back Helen's thoughts and she went into the house.

"He's coming," she said listlessly, careless of the use of pronouns. There was a pronoun on a ship, one on the moor, another driving up the road, and each had an importance and a supremacy that derided a mere name.

She shut the schoolroom door and waited in the hall, but half an hour later, she opened the door again.

"It's good news," she said breathlessly. "Do you want to speak to him, Rupert? She's going to live!"

She could not see her own happiness reflected.

"Like that?" John asked roughly.

"No, better, better. Always in bed, perhaps, but able to speak and understand."

He lifted his big shoulders; Uncle Alfred flicked something from his knee and, in the silence, Helen felt forlorn; her brightness faded.

"And you'll be left here with her, alone!" Miriam wailed, at last.

"Alone?" asked John.

"Uncle Alfred's going to take me away," Miriam said, yet she was not sure of that, and she looked curiously at him.

"I want her to go," Helen said quickly.

John was still glowering at Miriam. "Take you away! You talk as if you were a parcel!"

"I knew you would be angry," she said. "You've always been hard on me, and you don't understand."

"Well, it's Helen's affair."

"You don't understand," Miriam said again. She sat close to Uncle Alfred, and he patted her.

"Helen knows best," Lily said cheerfully, for she suspected what she did not know. "And we'll look after her. Come along, John. It's time we all went to bed."

"He'll grumble all the way home," Miriam said with a pout.

Rupert was still talking to the doctor: they had found some subject to their taste, and their voices sounded loudly in the quiet house. Helen had gone out to speak to Zebedee's old horse.

"Now, tell me what's the matter," Uncle Alfred said.

"Didn't Helen tell you?"

"No."

"Well," she swayed towards him, "the fact is, I'm too fascinating, Uncle Alfred. It's only fair to warn you."

All the strain had left her face, and she was more beautiful than he had remembered, but he now looked at her with the practical as well as the romantic eye, for his middle-aged happiness was to depend largely on this capricious creature, and for an instant he wondered if he had not endangered it.

"Probably," he said aloud.

"Aren't you sure of it?"

"Er—I was thinking of something else."

"That," she said emphatically, "is what I don't allow."

He looked at her rather sternly, bending his head so that the eye behind the monocle was full on her. She would never be as charming as her mother, he reflected, and with a start, he straightened himself on the thought, for he seemed to hear that remark being uttered by dull old gentlemen at their clubs. It was a thing not to be said: it dated one unmistakably, though in this case it was true.

"We must have a talk."

"A serious one?"

"Yes."

She looked at him nervously, regardless of her effect. "Will you mind taking care of me?" she asked in a low voice.

"My dear child—no."

"What is it, then?"

"I am trying to frame a piece of good advice. Well—er—this is the kind of thing." He was swinging the eyeglass by its string. "Don't go out into the world thinking you can conquer it: go out meaning to learn."

"Oh," Miriam said drearily. This meant that he was not entirely pleased with her. She wondered which of them had changed during these months, and characteristically she decided that it was he.

"Are you certain you want me?" she asked sadly.

"Quite certain, but you're not going to object to criticism, are you?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Well then—" he began and they both smiled, simultaneously reassured about each other.