el appeared to be rather
better next day. Terribly pale and worn though Helen looked, there was a
slight lifting of the cloud which had hung all these days in her eyes.

"She talked to me," she said voluntarily. "She asked me what day of the
week it was, like herself."

Then suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason, the tears
formed in her eyes and rolled steadily down her cheeks. She cried
with scarcely any attempt at movement of her features, and without any
attempt to stop herself, as if she did not know that she was crying. In
spite of the relief which her words gave him, Terence was dismayed by
the sight; had everything given way? Were there no limits to the power
of this illness? Would everything go down before it? Helen had always
seemed to him strong and determined, and now she was like a child. He
took her in his arms, and she clung to him like a child, crying softly
and quietly upon his shoulder. Then she roused herself and wiped her
tears away; it was silly to behave like that, she said; very silly, she
repeated, when there could be no doubt that Rachel was better. She asked
Terence to forgive her for her folly. She stopped at the door and came
back and kissed him without saying anything.

On this day indeed Rachel was conscious of what went on round her. She
had come to the surface of the dark, sticky pool, and a wave seemed to
bear her up and down with it; she had ceased to have any will of her
own; she lay on the top of the wave conscious of some pain, but chiefly
of weakness. The wave was replaced by the side of a mountain. Her body
became a drift of melting snow, above which her knees rose in huge
peaked mountains of bare bone. It was true that she saw Helen and saw
her room, but everything had become very pale and semi-transparent.
Sometimes she could see through the wall in front of her. Sometimes when
Helen went away she seemed to go so far that Rachel's eyes could hardly
follow her. The room also had an odd power of expanding, and though she
pushed her voice out as far as possible until sometimes it became a
bird and flew away, she thought it doubtful whether it ever reached the
person she was talking to. There were immense intervals or chasms, for
things still had the power to appear visibly before her, between one
moment and the next; it sometimes took an hour for Helen to raise her
arm, pausing long between each jerky movement, and pour out medicine.
Helen's form stooping to raise he