Miriam shrank against the wall. "Not ugly?"

"You must come and see," Helen said. She was shaken again by a moment's
anger as she looked on Miriam's lovely elegance and remembered the price
that had been paid for it. "You must come and see her," she repeated.
"Do you think you are the only one who hates deformity?"

"Deformity?" Miriam whispered.

"Her face is twisted. Oh--I see it every day!"

"Helen, don't! I'll go, but don't make me stay long. I'll go now," she
said, and went on timid feet.

Helen stayed outside the door, for she could not bring herself to
witness Mildred Caniper's betrayal of her decay to one who had never
loved her: there was an indecency in allowing Miriam to see it. Helen
leaned against the door and heard faint sounds of voices, and in
imagination she saw the scene. Mildred Caniper sat in her comfortable
chair by a bright fire, though it was now late June of a triumphant
summer, and Miriam stood near, answering questions quickly, her feet
light on the ground and ready to bear her off.

Very soon the door was opened and Miriam caught Helen's arm.

"I didn't think she would be like that," she whispered. "Helen,
she's--she's--"

"I know she is," Helen said deeply.

"But I can't bear it!"

"You don't have to."

They went into Phoebe's room and shut the door, and it was a comfort
to Miriam to have two solid blocks of wood between her and the
deterioration in the chair.

"I know I ought to stay with you--all alone in this house--no one to
talk to--and at night--Are you afraid? Do you have to sleep with her?"

"Sometimes," Helen said, and drew both hands down her face.

"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you,
or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do
something? Why doesn't he take you away?"

"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep
me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark
night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it
greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most
people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't
look like that. I'm the same Helen."

"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?"

Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy.

"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the
word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her.

There were