the one she wanted.

"But do I look the same?"

He held her by the chin. "Have you been crying?"

"No."

"What is it then?"

She looked beyond him at the magnificence of the clouds and her troubles
dwindled. "I felt miserable. I was worried."

"And you're happier now?"

She nodded.

"Then give me a kiss."

She turned her cheek to him.

"No. I said, give me one."

"I can't reach you."

"You don't want to."

"I never want to kiss people."

"People! Then do it to please me."

His cheek hardly felt her pressure.

"It's the way a ghost would kiss," he said.

"That's how I shall haunt you when I'm dead."

"Nay, we'll have to die together."

She wrinkled her face. "But we can't do that without a lot of practice."

"What? Oh!" Her jokes made him uneasy. "I must go on. Helen, I'll see
you tonight."

"Yes, you'll see the ghost who gives the little kisses."

"Don't say it!"

"But it's nice to be a ghost, you feel so light and free. There isn't
any flesh to be corrupted. I'm glad I thought of that, George.
Good-bye."

"No. Come here again. Stand on my foot." He clinched her waist and
kissed her on the mouth and let her drop. "You are no ghost," he said,
and rode away.

She was indeed no ghost. Some instinct told him how to deal with her,
and when he insisted on her humanity, her body thrilled in answer and
agreement, and with each kiss and each insistence she became more his
own; yet she was thrall less to the impulses of her youth than to some
age-old willingness to serve him who possessed her. But her life had
mental complications, for she dreaded in Zebedee the disloyalty which
she reluctantly meted out to him when George had her in his arms. She
would not have Zebedee love another woman, and she longed for assurance
of his devotion, but she could not pass the barrier he had set up; she
could not try to pass it without another and crueller disloyalty to both
men. Her body was faithful to George and her mind to Zebedee, and the
two fought against each other and wearied her.

The signs of strain were only in her eyes; her body had grown more
beautiful, and when Miriam arrived on a short visit to the moor, she
stopped in the doorway to exclaim, "But you're different! Why are you
different?"

"It is a long time since you went away," Helen said slowly. "Centuries."

"Not to me! The time has flown." She laughed at her recollections. "And,
anyhow, it's only a few months, and you have changed."