without you," and after a pause
she added the one word, "lonely."

It was strange that Miriam, whom she loved best, should never present
herself to Helen's mind as a companion: the sisters, indeed, rarely
spoke together except to argue some domestic point, to scold each other,
or to tease, yet each was conscious of the other's admiration, though
Helen looked on Miriam as a pretty ornament or toy, and Miriam gazed
dubiously at what she called the piety of the other.

"Yes, lonely," she said, but in her heart she was glad that her payment
should be great, and she said loudly, as though she recited her creed:
"I wouldn't change anything. I believe in the things that happen."

"May they reward you!" he said solemnly.

"When will you have to go?"

"I'm not sure. Pretty soon. Look here, my dear, you three lone women
ought to have a dog to take man's place as your natural protector--and
so on."

"Have you told Zebedee you are going?"

"Yesterday."

"Then he will be getting one."

"H'm. He seems to be a satisfactory lover."

"He is, you know."

"Thank God for him."

"Would you?" Helen said. She had a practical as well as a superstitious
distaste for offering thanks for benefits not actually received, and
also a disbelief in the present certainty of her possession, but she
took hope. John had gone, Rupert was going, of her own will she would
send Zebedee away, and then surely the powers would be appeased, and if
she suffered enough from loneliness, from dread of seeing Mildred
Caniper ill again, of never getting her lover back, the rulers of her
life might be willing, at the end, to let her have Zebedee and the
shining house--the shining house which lately had taken firmer shape,
and stood squarely back from the road, with a little copse of trees
rising behind.

CHAPTER XXI

She cried out when next she saw him, for between this and their next
meeting he had grown gaunter, more nervous, sharper in voice and
gesture.

"Oh, you're ill!" she said, and stepped back as though she did not know
him.

"Yes, I'm ill." He held to a chair and tipped it back and forth. "For
goodness' sake, don't talk about it any more. I'm ill. That's settled.
Now let's get on to something else."

He saw her lip quiver and, uttering a desperate, "I'm sorry," he turned
from her to the window.

The wisdom she could use so well with others was of no avail with him:
he was too much herself to be treated cunningly. She felt that