it, too; but if Helen came in her
grey frock, slipping among the trees like silver light, he knew she
would bring healing to his home and to his heart.

"Will you?" he begged. "Will you, Miss Helen? D'you remember how I used
to call you that? Will you?"

"I don't know."

"But I want you so," he said; and when he would have touched her he
found her gone.

CHAPTER XXVI

Her bargain had been made and must be kept and Zebedee would understand.
He would not be angry with her: he had only been angry with her once,
and he had always understood. He would feel her agony in that room at
Halkett's Farm, with Miriam, white and stricken, on the floor, and
George Halkett, hot and maddened, on the bed, and he would know that
hers had been the only way.

These were her thoughts as she went about the house, hasping windows and
bolting doors, with a dreary sense of the futility of caution.

"For you see, Jim, the horse is stolen already," she said.

She did not forget to bid Jane good-night; she undressed and laid her
clothes neatly in their place, and without difficulty she dropped into a
sleep as deep as her own trouble.

She had the virtues of her defects, a stoicism to match her resolutions,
and she was angered when she rose and saw the reflection of eyes that
had looked on sorrow. She shook her head at the person in the glass and,
leaning from the window and finding the garden no less lovely for the
traffic of the night, she was enspirited by that example, and ran
downstairs to open the front door and let in the morning. Then she
turned to face the business of another day.

She was amazed to find her stepmother in the kitchen, making pastry by
the window, to see the fire burning heartily and the breakfast-things
ready on a tray.

"What are you doing?" she demanded from the doorway.

Mildred Caniper looked round. Her eyes were very bright and Helen waited
in dread of the garrulousness of last night, but Mildred spoke with the
old incisive tongue, though it moved slowly.

"You can see what I am doing."

"But you ought not to do it."

"I refuse to be an invalid any longer."

"And all yesterday you were in bed."

"Yesterday is not today, and you may consider yourself second in command
again. It is time I was about the house when you and Miriam choose to
spend half the night on the moor. I was left in bed with a house
unlocked."

"But Jim was there."

"Jim! Although Dr. Mackenzie gave you the dog, Helen,