with wet wings were
struggling to be free.

"Something happened. It was George. Has he gone away?"

"He isn't going to hurt you. He wants to take you home."

"Don't let him. We'll go together, Helen. Soon. Not yet. Take care of
me. Don't leave me." She started up. "Helen! I didn't say I'd marry him.
I wouldn't. Helen, I know I didn't!"

"You didn't, you didn't. He knows. He frightened you because you teased
him so. He just frightened you. He's here--not angry. Look!"

He nodded at her clumsily.

"You see?"

"Yes. I'm glad. I'm sorry, George."

"It doesn't matter," he said.

He looked at Helen and she looked full at him and she knew, when he
turned to Miriam, that he still watched over herself. She could
recognize the tenderness and wonder in his eyes, but she could not
understand how they had found a place there, ousting greed and anger
for her sake, how his molten senses had taken an imprint of her to
instruct his mind.

"Can you come now?" she said.

"Yes." Miriam stood up and laughed unsteadily. "How queer I feel!
George--"

"It's all right," he said. "I'll take you home."

"But we're not afraid," Helen said. "There's nothing to be afraid of on
the moor." All possibility of fear had gone: her dread had been for some
uncertain thing that was to come, and now she knew the evil and found in
it something almost as still as rest.

In the passage, he separated her from Miriam. "I want to speak to you."

"Yes. Be careful."

"Tonight. In your garden. I'll wait there. Come to me. Promise that,
too."

"Oh, yes, yes," she said. "That, too."

He watched them go across the yard, their heads bent towards each other,
and Helen's pale arm like a streak on Miriam's dress. He heard their
footsteps and the shifting of a horse in the stables, and a mingled
smell of manure and early flowers crept up to him. The slim figures were
now hardly separable from the wood, and they were frail and young and
touching. He looked at them, and he was sorry for all the unworthy
things he had ever done. It was Helen who made him feel like that, Helen
who shone like a star, very far off, but not quite out of reach. She was
the only star that night. Not one showed its face among the clouds, and
there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on
earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her
name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound
and to float among the clouds.