again. You have destroyed
what was not there."

He was silent for a moment, still keeping his arm round her. Then he
said, "Look what's here." And he opened his hand and showed her his
metal box without its lid; in it were the mummies of seven ears of
corn. Some were only husks, but some had grain in them still.

She stared at them through her tears, and drew from her breast her hand
with the shell in it. Suddenly her mouth quivered and she cried
passionately, "What's the use?" And she snatched the old corn from him
and flung it to the millstones with her shell. And the millstones
ground them to eternal atoms....

"My boy! my boy! it was you over there in the tree!"

"Oh, child, you came at last in your blue gown!"

"Why didn't you call to me?"

"I'd no breath. I was spent. And I knew you'd seen me and would do your
best."

"I'll never forget that sight of you in the tree, with your old jersey
and your hair as red as ever."

"I shall always see your free young figure standing on the high bank
against the sky."

"Oh, I was desperate."

"I wondered what you'd do. I knew you'd do something."

"I thought I'd never get across the water."

"Do you know what I thought as I saw you coming so bravely and so
badly? I thought, I'll teach her to swim one day. Shall I, child?"

"I can't swim without you, my boy," she whispered.

"But you pretended not to know me!"

"I couldn't help it, it was such fun."

"How COULD you make fun of me then?"

"I always shall, you know."

"Oh, yes," she said, "do, always."

"What DID you think when you saw me in the tree? What did you see when
you got there? Not what you expected."

"No. I saw twenty years come flying upon me, twenty years I'd forgotten
all about. Because for me it has always been twenty years ago."

"And you expected to see a boy, and you saw a grizzled man."

"No," said Helen, her eyes shining with tears, "I expected to see a
boy, and I saw a gray-haired woman. I've seen her ever since."

"I've only seen her once," said Peter. "I saw her rise up from the
water and sit in my tree. And when she spoke and looked at me, it was a
child." He put his hand over her wet eyes. "You must stop seeing her,
child," he said.

"When I told you my name, were you disappointed?"

"No. It's the loveliest name in the world."

"You said it at once."

"I had to. I'd wanted to say it for twenty years. But I sha'n't say it
often, Helen."

"Won't you?"

"No, c