a wave without the desire to break,
held in its perfect contour by its own content. The moor itself had the
patience of the wisdom which is faith, and Helen might have heard it
laughing tenderly if she had been less concerned with the discovery of
her fires. She stood still, and her eyes found only the moor, the rocks
and hills.

"I must go on," she said in a whisper. And now, for pleasure in her
strength, she went in running bounds over a stretch of close-cropped
turf, and space became so changed for her that she hardly knew whether
she leapt a league or foot; and it was all one, for she had a feeling of
great power and happiness in a world which was empty without loneliness.
And then a creeping line of fire arrested her. Not far off, it went
snake-like over the ground, disappeared, and again burned out more
brightly: it edged the pale smoke like embroidery on a veil, and behind
that veil there lived and moved the smoke-god she had created for
herself when she was ten years old. She could not hear the crackling of
the twigs nor smell their burning, and she had no wish to draw nearer.
She stretched out her arms and dropped to her knees and prayed.

"Oh, Thou, behind the smoke," she said aloud, "guard the moor and us. We
will not harm your moor. Amen."

This was the eleventh time she had prayed to the God behind the smoke,
and he had guarded both the Canipers and the moor, but now she felt the
need to add more words to the childish ones she had never changed.

"And let me be afraid of nothing," she said firmly, and hesitated for a
second. "For beauty's sake. Amen."

CHAPTER II

After her return over the moor, through the silent garden and the dim
house, Helen was dazzled by the schoolroom lights and she stood blinking
in the doorway.

"We're all here and all hungry," Rupert said. "You're late."

"I know." She shut the door and took off her hat. "Miriam, I met
Zebedee."

"Oh," Miriam said on a disapproving note. She lay on the sofa as though
a wind had flung her there, and her eyes were closed. In her composure
she looked tired, older than Helen and more experienced, but her next
words came youthfully enough. "Just like you. You get everything."

"I couldn't help it," Helen said mildly. "He came round the corner from
Halkett's Farm. Ought I to have run away?"

Miriam sat up and laughed, showing dark eyes and shining little teeth
which transformed her face into a childish one.

"Is he different?"