e, by her metamorphosis, there was no fear
of that promise's fulfilment. It seemed only fair to tell him, but when
he came to her, she shook her head.

"It was nothing," she murmured. Bulky of body, virile of sense, he was
immature in mind, and she knew he would not understand.

"I must go now. Good-night."

"Don't go," he muttered.

She stood still, waiting for the words that laboured in him.

"I was mad," he said at last. "She makes me feel like that. You--you're
different."

He wanted help from her, but she gave him none, and again there was a
silence in which Jim came through the door and put his head into Helen's
hand.

"Jim!" she said, "Jim!" Her thoughts went across a continent to blue
water.

"I'd begun to love her," he explained, and moved from one foot to the
other.

"George, I must go in."

"But I don't love her now," he added fiercely, with pride, almost with
reassurance.

She would have laughed if she had heard him, but her numbness had passed
by and all her powers were given to resisting the conviction that she
was indeed Helen Caniper, born, to die, a woman; that Zebedee was on the
sea, and had not ceased to love her, that she would have a tale to tell
him on his return, and a dishonoured body to elude his arms, but she
could not resist the knowledge, and under its gathering strength she
cried out in a fury of pain that drove Halkett back a step.

"What is it?" he asked.

She did not answer. Her rage and misery left her weak and hopeless and
though for a bright, flaming instant she had loathed him, she was now
careless of him and of herself because nothing mattered any more.

She drooped against the door, and he approached her nervously, saying as
he went, "You're tired. You ought to go to bed. I'll take you to the
house."

That roused her and she looked at him. "No. Some one might hear."

"I can tread softly."

"Very well." She halted him among the poplars. "No further."

"I'll come tomorrow," he whispered.

"No, not tomorrow. Not until I tell you. I don't want any one to know.
Don't come tomorrow."

"Then come to me," he said. "I wish you'd come to me. I'd like to see
you coming through our wood and across the cobbles. And in the morning,
the sun's on that side of the house. Helen," he pleaded, "will you
come?" It was Miriam who had come before, a dark sprite, making and
loving mischief, lowering him in his own regard until he had a longing
to touch bottom and make her touch