f the darkness into his life, a few
nights ago, an unexpected invasion, but one not to be repelled, nor did
he wish to repel it. He was amazed to hear himself uttering his thoughts
aloud.

"I always liked you when you were a little girl," he said, as though he
accounted for something to himself.

"Better than Miriam?" she asked quickly.

"Of course."

"Oh," she said, and paused. "But I feel as if Miriam--" She stopped
again and waited for his next words, but he saw the steepness of the
path on which he had set his feet and he would not follow it.

"And I used to think you looked--well, brave."

"Did I? Don't I now?"

"Yes; so you see, you must be."

"I'll try. Three stars," she said, looking up. "But mayn't I--mayn't I
say the things I'm thinking?"

"I hope you will," he answered gravely; "but then, you must be careful
what you think."

"This is a very gentle lecture," she said. "Four stars, now. Five. When
I've counted seven, we'll go back, but I rather hoped you would be a
little cross."

Pleased, yet half irritated, by this simplicity, he stood in silence
while she counted her seven stars.

CHAPTER XI

It had long been a custom of the Canipers to spend each warm Sunday
evening in the heather, and there, if Daniel were not already with them,
they would find him waiting, or they would watch for his gaunt, loose
figure to come across the moor. This habit had begun when his father was
alive, and the stern chapel-goer's anger must be dared before Daniel
could appear with the light of a martyr on his brow. In those days,
Zebedee, who was working under the old doctor, sometimes arrived with
Daniel, and sank with an unexpressed relief into the lair which was a
little hollow in the moor, where heather grew thickly on the sides, but
permitted pale violets and golden tormentilla to creep about the grassy
bottom. Zebedee was more than ten years older than his brother, and he
suffered from a loneliness which made their honest welcome of great
value to him. He liked to listen to the boys' precocious talk and watch
the grace and beauty of the girls before he went back to the ugly house
in the town of dreary streets, to the work he liked and wearied himself
over, and the father he did not understand. Then he went away, and he
never knew how bitterly Helen missed him, how she had recognized the
tired look which said he had been working too hard, and the unhappy look
which betrayed his quarrels with his fathe