Disease fell heavily on the town that autumn and Zebedee and Helen had to snatch their meetings hurriedly on the moor. She found that Miriam was right and she had no difficulty and no shame in running out into the darkness for a clasp of hands, a few words, a shadowy glimpse of Zebedee by the light of the carriage lamps, while the old horse stood patiently between the shafts and breathed visibly against the frosty night. Over the sodden or frozen ground, the peat squelching or the heather stalks snapping under her feet, she would make her way to that place where she hoped to find her lover with his quick words and his scarce caresses and, returning with the wind of the moor on her and eyes wide with wonder and the night, she would get a paternal smile from Rupert and a gibing word from Miriam, and be almost unaware of both. For weeks, her days were only preludes to the short perfection of his presence and her nights were filled with happy dreams: the eyes which had once been so watchful over Mildred Caniper were now turned inwards or levelled on the road; she went under a spell which shut out fear.

In December she was brought back to a normal world by the illness of Mildred Caniper. One morning, without a word of explanation or complaint, she went back to her bed, and Helen found her there, lying inert and staring at the ceiling. She had not taken down her hair and under the crown of it her face looked small and pinched, her eyes were like blue pools threatening to over-run their banks.

"Is your head aching?" Helen said.

"I—don't think so."

"What is it, then?"

"I was afraid I could not—go on," she said carefully. "I was afraid of doing something silly and I was giddy."

"Are you better now?"

"Yes. I want to rest."

"Try to sleep."

"It isn't sleep I want. It's rest, rest."

Helen went away, but before long she came back with a dark curtain to shroud the window.

"No, no! I want light, not shadows," Mildred cried in a shrill voice. "A dark room—" Her voice fell away in the track of her troubled memories, and when she spoke again it was in her ordinary tones. "I beg your pardon, Helen. You startled me. I think I must have dozed and dreamed."

"And you won't have the curtain?"

"No. Let there be light." She lay there helpless, while thoughts preyed on her, as vultures might prey on something moribund.

At dinner-time she refused to help herself to food, though she ate if Helen fed her. "The spoon is heavy," she complained.

Miriam was white and nervous. "She ought to have Zebedee," she said. "She looks funny. She frightens me."

"We could wait until tomorrow," Helen said. "He is so busy and I don't want to bring him up for nothing. He's being overworked."

"But for Notya!" Miriam exclaimed. "And don't you want to see him?" She could not keep still. "I can't bear people to be ill. He ought to come."

"Go and ask John."

"What does he know about it?" she whispered. "I keep thinking perhaps she will go mad."

"That's silly."

"It isn't. She looks—queer. If she does, I shall run away. I'm going to George. He'll drive into the town. You mustn't sacrifice Notya to Zebedee, you know."

Helen let out an ugly, scornful sound that angered Miriam.

"Old sheep!" she said, and Helen had to spare a smile, but she was thoughtful.

"Perhaps John would go."

"But why not George?"

"We're always asking favours."

"Pooh! He likes them and I don't mind asking."

"Well, then, it would be rather a relief. I don't know what to do with her."

The sense of responsibility towards George which had once kept Miriam awake had also kept her from him in a great effort of self-denial, and it was many days since she had done more than wave a greeting or give him a few light words.

"I believe I've offended you," he had told her not long ago, but she assured him that it was not so.

"Then I can't make you out," he muttered.

She shut her eyes and showed him her long lashes. "No, I'm a mystery. Think about me, George." And before he had time to utter his genuine, clumsy speech, she ran away.

"But I can't avoid temptation much longer," she told herself. "Life's too dull."

And now this illness which alarmed her was like a door opening slowly.

"And it's the hand of God that left it ajar," she said as she sped across the moor.

Her steps slackened as she neared the larch-wood, for she had not ventured into it since the night of old Halkett's death; but it was possible that George would be working in the yard and, tiptoeing down the soft path, she issued on the cobble-stones.

George was not there, nor could she hear him, and she was constrained to knock on the closed door, but the face of Mrs. Biggs, who appeared after a stealthy pause, was not encouraging to the visitor. She looked at Miriam and her thin lips parted and joined again without speech.

"I want Mr. Halkett," Miriam said, straightening herself and speaking haughtily because she guessed that Mrs. Biggs was suspicious of her friendliness with George.

"He's out. You'll have to wait," she said and shut the door.

A cold wind was swooping into the hollow, but Miriam was hot with a gathering anger that rushed into words as Halkett appeared.

"George!" She ran to him. "I hate that woman. I always did. I wish you wouldn't keep her. Oh, I hate her!"

"But you didn't come here to tell me that," he said. In her haste she had allowed him to take her hand and the touch of her softened his resentment at her neglect; amusement narrowed his eyes until she could not see their blue.

"She's horrid, she's rude; she left me on the step. I didn't want to go in, but she oughtn't to have left me standing there."

"She ought not. I'll tell her."

"Dare you?"

"Dare I!" he repeated boastfully.

"But you mustn't! Don't, George, please don't. Promise you won't. Promise, George."

"All right."

"Thank you." She drew her hand away.

"The fact is, she's always pretty hard on you."

Miriam's flame went out. "You don't mean," she said coldly, "that you discuss me with her?"

"No, I do not."

"You swear you never have?"

He had a pleasing and indulgent smile. "Yes, I swear it, but she dislikes the whole lot of you, and you can't always stop a woman's talk."

"You should be able to," she said. She wished she had not come for George did not realize what was due to her. She would go to John and she nodded a cold good-bye.

Her hands were in the pockets of her brown woollen coat, her shoulders were lifted towards her ears; she was less beautiful than he had ever seen her, yet in her kindest moments she had not seemed so near to him. He was elated by this discovery; he did not seek its cause and, had he done so, he was not acute enough to see that hitherto the feelings she had shown him had been chiefly feigned, and that this real resentment, marking her face with petulance, revealed her nature to be common with his own.

"But you've not told me what you came for," he said.

She was reluctant, but she spoke. "To ask you to do something for us."

"You know I'll do it."

Still sulky, she took a few steps and leaned against the house wall; she had the look of a boy caught in a fault.

"We want the doctor."

"Who's ill?"

"It's Notya."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know." She forgot her grievance. "I don't like thinking of it. It makes me sick."

"Is she very bad?"

"No, but I think he ought to come."

"Must I bring him back?"

"Just leave a message, please, if it doesn't put you out."

In the pause before he spoke, he studied the dark head against the white-washed wall, the slim body, the little feet crossed on the cobbles, and then he stammered:

"You—you're like a rose-tree growing up."

She spread her arms and turned and drooped her head to encourage the resemblance. "Like that?"

He nodded, with the clumsiness of his emotions. "Look here—"

"Now, don't be tiresome. Oh, you can tell me what you were going to say."

"All these weeks—"

"I know, but it was for your sake, George."

"How?"

"It's difficult to explain, but one night my good angel bent over my bed, like a mother—or was it your good angel?"

He grinned. "I don't believe you'd know one if you saw one."

"I'm afraid I shouldn't," she admitted, with a laugh. "Would you?"

"I fancy I've seen one."

"Mrs. Biggs?" she dared. "Me?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

"I expect it's me. But run away and bring the doctor."

"I say—will you wait till I get back?"

"I couldn't. Think of Mrs. Biggs!"

"Not here. Up in the wood. But never mind. Come and see me saddle the little mare."

She liked the smell of the long, dim stable, the sound of the horses moving in their stalls, the regular crunching as they ate their hay. Years ago, she had been in this place with John and Rupert and she............