th 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 alon