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

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

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

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

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

"I didn't hear you coming."

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

"Anxious?"

"Well—eager."

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

"You're my wife—and wives—"

"You know why I married you, George."

"You're married, none the less."

"I'm not disputing that."

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

"I only wonder if it was worth while."

"I'll make it that."

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

"I'll get what I can now."

She nodded lightly, and her coolness warmed him.

"Helen—"

"Why don't you sit down?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, I do."

"But you don't like me."

"I might."

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

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

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

"Yes."

"And Mrs. Caniper, can she hear?"

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

"And Jim won't mind?"

"Oh, no, Jim won't."

"Nor you?"

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

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

"What's that for?" he asked.

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

"What made you think of that?"

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

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

"I like to see you—behind the smoke."

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

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

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

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

"I'll come tomorrow."

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

"He goes on Sunday night?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Good-evening, George."

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

He stood close to h............