m she had deserted. She sat on
the stairs, and the darkness seemed to shift about her. She thought of
the bedroom she had left, and it seemed to her that there would never be
a night when she would not leave it to find her own, nor a day when, as
she worked in the hollow, her heart would not be here. Yet she was Helen
Halkett, and she belonged to Halkett's Farm.

She rose and walked into the kitchen and slipped her hand along the
mantelshelf to find a box of matches she had left there.

She was going to end the struggle. She could not burn Zebedee, but she
could burn the house. The rooms where he had made love to her should
stand no longer, and so her spirit might find a habitation where her
body lived.

She piled paper and straw against the windows and the doors, and set a
lighted match to them; then she went to the moor and waited. She might
have done it in a dream, for her indifference: it was no more to her
than having lighted a few twigs in the heather; but when she saw the
flames climbing up like red and yellow giants, she was afraid. There
were hundreds of giants, throwing up hands and arms and trying to reach
the roof. They fought with each other as they struggled, and the dark
sky made a mirror for their fights.

The poplars were being scorched, and she cried out at that discovery.
Oh, the poplars! the poplars! How they must suffer! And how their leaves
would drop, black and shrivelled, a black harvest to strew the lawn. She
thought she heard the shouting of the Pinderwells, but she knew their
agony would be short, and already they were silent. The poplars were
still in pain, and she ran to the front of the house that she might not
see them.

There was a figure coming up the track. It was John, with his trousers
pulled over his night things.

"God! What's up?" he cried.

"It's the house--only the house burning. There's no one there."

He looked into the face that was all black and white, like cinders; then
at the flames, red and yellow, like live coals, and he held her by the
arm because he did not like the look of her.

A man came running up. It was Halkett's William.

"Have you seen the master? He went round by the back."

"Go and look for him. Tell him his wife's here. I'll search the front."

Both men ran, shouting, but it was Helen who saw George at the window of
Mildred Caniper's room.

She rushed into the garden where the heat was scorching, she heard his
joyful "Helen!" as he saw her, an