ay, "Do what you like," but having said it, she
could add, with vehemence, "Don't bother me! I'm busy."

"But--" he said, and looked down: and now she seemed to be caught in his
shame, a partner, and she had to wait for what he tried to say.

He looked up, saying, "You promised."

"Oh, I know."

She did not go. Perhaps people lying side by side in their graves would
talk to each other like this, in voices muffled by their coffins and
inarticulate because of fleshless lips, with words that had no meaning
now that life, which made them, was done. And again she felt that she
and George were moles, burrowing in the earth, scratching, groping for
something blindly.

She brought her hands together and shook them.

"If only one could see!" she said aloud.

"What is it?"

"I feel as if I'm in a dark room."

"It's a dark night," he said, and touched her wrist. "When shall I see
you again? Tomorrow?"

"You can't see me now."

"I can. Your hair has drops on it, and your face--"

"No!" she cried. "Don't tell me. Don't come with me."

She ran from him at last, and he did not follow her. Like her, he was
bewildered, but for him she was a light he could not put out: for her he
was the symbol of that darkness which had fallen on life.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The next day had its own bewilderment and confusion, and Helen learnt
that high tragedy is not blackest gloom but a thing patched and streaked
with painful brightness, and she found herself capable of a gaiety which
made Miriam doubly reproachful.

"You've never been like this before," she said, "and we might have had
such fun. And you shouldn't be like it now, when I'm going away
tomorrow." She sat in her empty box, with her legs dangling over the
side. "I'm not sure that I shall go."

"You've only two pairs of stockings without holes in them," Helen said.
She was kneeling before Miriam's chest of drawers.

"Doesn't matter. I shall have to buy heaps of things. D'you know, I'm
afraid he's going to be strict."

"Poor little man!"

"And when one begins to think about it seriously, Helen, will one like
it very much? Who's going to play with me? There'll be Uncle Alfred and
a housekeeper woman. And do you know what he said?" She struggled from
the box, shut down the lid and sat on it. "He said I must think I'm
going into the world to learn. Learn!"

"I expect you'll want to. You won't like yourself so much when you meet
other people."

"And shan't I hate