lt it as he carried it. "Why didn't I see before? I did see
before. On the moor, I watched for you You're beautiful." His voice
sank. "You're good."

She was not listening to him. She dabbled water on Miriam's brow and
lips and chafed her hands, but still she lay as if she were glad to
sleep.

"Poor little thing!" Helen said deeply and half turned her head. "Some
of your brandy," she commanded. "She is so cold."

"I'll take her to the kitchen."

"Is that woman in the house?" she asked sharply.

"She's in bed, I suppose."

"She must have heard--she must have known--and she didn't help!"

He put a hand to his forehead. "No, she didn't help. I'd meant to give
her up, and then--I found her here, and I'd been drinking."

"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" She twisted her hands together. "George,
don't make me hate you."

"No," he said with a strange meekness. "Shall I take her to the kitchen?
It'll be warm there, and the fire won't be out. I'll carry her."

"But I don't like you to touch her," Helen stated with a simplicity that
had its fierceness.

"It's just as if she's dead," he said in a low voice, and at Helen's
frightened gasp, he added--"I mean for me."

"Take her," she said, and when he had obeyed she sat on her heels and
stared at nothing. For her, a mist was in the room, but through it there
loomed the horrid familiarity of Halkett's bed, his washstand and a row
of boots. Why was she here? What had she done? She heard him asking
gently, "Aren't you coming?" and she remembered. She had promised to
marry George because Miriam had been lying on the floor, because, years
ago, the woman lying alone in Pinderwell House had brought the Canipers
to the moor where George lived and was brutal and was going to marry
her. But it could not be true, for, in some golden past, before this
ugliness fell between her and beauty, she had promised to marry Zebedee.
She held her head to think. No, of course she had given him no promise.
They had come together like birds, like bees to flowers--

"Aren't you coming?" Halkett asked again.

She rose. Yes, here was her promised man. She had bought Miriam with a
price. She stumbled after him down the stairs.

In the warmth of the kitchen, by the light of a glowing fire and a
single candle, Miriam's eyelids fluttered and lay back.

"It's all right, darling," Helen said. "You're quite safe. You're with
Helen, with Helen, dear."

Behind Miriam's eyes, thoughts like butterflies