wn
outside his sister's window to intercept the expected visit.

"Winky," she said, speaking rather low, "is a true name, of course.
You really created Winky--called Winky into being." For to her now
this seemed as true and possible as it had seemed to himself at the
age of ten.

"Oh, I really loved Winky," he replied enthusiastically, and was at the
same moment surprised to feel her draw away her hand. "Winky lived for
years in my very heart."

And the next thing he knew, after a brief silence between them, was
that he heard a sob, and no attempt to smother it either. In less than
a second he was beside her and had both her hands in his. He understood
in a flash.

"You precious baby," he cried, "but Winky was a little man. He
wasn't a girl!"

She looked up through her tears--oh, but how wonderful her grey eyes were
through tears!--and made him stand still before her and repeat his
sentence. And she said, "I know it's true, but I like to hear you say it,
and that's why I asked you to repeat it."

"Miriam," he said to her softly, kneeling down on the heather at her
feet, "there's only one name in my heart, I can tell you that. I heard it
sing and sing the moment I came into this house, the very instant I first
saw you in that dark passage. I knew perfectly well, ages and ages ago,
that one day a girl with your name would come singing into my life to
make me complete and happy, but I never believed that she would look as
beautiful as you are." He kissed the two hands he held. "Or that
she--would--would think of me as you do," he stammered in his passion.

And then Miriam, smiling down on him through her tears, bent and kissed
his feathery hair, and immediately after was on her knees in front of him
among the heather.

"I own you," she said quite simply. "I know your name, and you know mine.
Whatever happens--" But Spinrobin was too happy to hear any more, and
putting both arms round her neck, he kissed the rest of her words away
into silence.

And in the very middle of this it was that the girl gently, but very
firmly, pushed him from her, and Spinrobin in the delicacy of his mind
understood that for the first time in her curious, buried life the
primitive instincts had awakened, so that she knew herself a woman, and a
woman, moreover, who loved.

* * * * *

Thus caught in a bewildering network of curiosity, fear, wonder,
and--love, Spinrobin stayed on, and decided further tha