pity for her and with regrets. To Miriam, when
she arrived, it was an astonishment to find them sitting in the
schoolroom, hand in hand, so much absorbed in their common knowledge
that they did not loose their grasp at her approach, but sat on like
lost, bewildered children in a wood.

Wherever Helen went, he followed, clumsy but protective, peering at her
anxiously as though he feared something terrible would happen to her,
too.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asked her.

"What?"

"Having me."

"I like it--but there's your hay."

"There's hay every year," he answered.

* * * * *

Uncle Alfred moved quietly about the house, stood uneasily at a window,
or drifted into the garden, swinging his eyeglass, his expression
troubled, his whole being puzzled by the capacity of his relatives to be
dramatic, without apparent realization of their gift. Here was a sister
suddenly dead, a niece wandering hand in hand with the man from whom
another niece had fled, while the discarded lover acted the part of
family friend; and that family preserved its admirable trick of asking
no question, of accepting each member's right to its own actions. Only
Miriam, now and then catching his eye in the friendly understanding they
had established, seemed to make a criticism without a comment, and to
promise him that, foolish as she was, he need not fear results on
Helen's colossal scale.

It was Rupert who could best appreciate Helen's attitude, and when he
was not thinking of the things he might have done for a woman he could
help no longer, he was watching his sister and her impassivity, her
unfailing gentleness to George, the perfection of her manner to Zebedee.
She satisfied his sense of what was fitting, and gave him the kind of
pleasure to be derived from the simple and candid handiwork of a master.

"If tragedy produces this kind of thing," he said to John with a
gesture, "the suffering is much more than worth while--from the
spectator's point of view."

"I don't know what you are talking about," John said.

"The way she manages those two."

"Who? And which?"

"Good Lord, man! Haven't you seen it? Helen and the two suitors."

John grunted. "Oh--that!" He had not yet learnt to speak of the affair
with any patience.

* * * * *

Mildred Caniper had left the house and all it held to Helen.

"I suppose you'll try to let it," Rupert said. "I don't like to think of