defined: she knew only that the world smelt sweeter than
it had ever done, that the stars shone with amazing brightness. Through
the darkness she could see the splendid curves of the moor and the
shapes of thorn bushes thick with leaves. The familiar friends of other
days seemed to wait upon her happiness, but the stars laughed at her as
they had always done. She looked up and saw a host of them, clear and
distant, shining in a sky so blue and vast that to see it was like
flight. They were secure in their high places, and with the smiling
benignity of gods they assured her of her littleness, and gladly she
accepted that assurance, for she shared her littleness with Zebedee, and
now she understood that her happiness was made of small great things, of
the hope of caring for him, of keeping that shining house in order, of
cradling children in wide, airy rooms. She had a sudden desire to mend
Zebedee's clothes and put them neatly in their places, to feel the
smoothness of his freshly-laundered collars in her hand.

She sat down in the heather and it was her turn to laugh up at the stars
who could do none of these things and lived in isolated grandeur. The
earth was nearer to her finite mind. It was warm with the sunshine of
many days and trodden by human, beloved feet; it offered up food and
drink and consolation. Darker than the sky, it had no colour but its
own, yet Helen sat among pale spikes of blossom.

It was a night when even those beings who could not wander in the
daytime must be content to lie and listen to the silence, when evil must
run from the face of beauty and hide itself in streets. All round her,
Helen fancied shapes without substance, lying in worship of the night
which was their element, and when she rose from her bed at last she
moved with quietness lest she should disturb them.

She had not gone far before she was aware that some one else was walking
on the moor. For a moment she thought it must be Rupert in search of
her, but Rupert would have called out, and this person, while he
rustled through the heather, let forth a low whistled note, and though
he went with care, it was for some purpose of his own and not for
courtesy towards the mystery of the night.

She could not decide from what direction the sounds came; she stopped
and they stopped; then she heard the whistle again, but nearer now, and
with a sudden realization of loneliness and of the womanhood which had
seldom troubled her, she ran wi