then she smoothed her face
and went into the house.

In the drawing-room, Mildred Caniper was sitting on the sofa, and near
her John and Lily had disposed themselves like guests.

Helen stopped in the doorway. "Then the light in your house meant
nothing," she said reproachfully.

"What should it mean?" John asked.

"Happiness and peace--somewhere," she said.

"It does mean that," and turning to Lily, he asked, "Doesn't it?"

"Yes, yes, but don't brag about it."

They laughed together, and they sat with an alert tranquillity of
health which made Mildred Caniper look very small and frail. She was
listening courteously to the simple things John told her about animals
and crops and butter-sales, but Helen knew that she was almost too tired
to understand, and she felt trouble sweeping over her own happiness.

To hide that trouble, she asked quickly, "Where are the others?" and an
invisible Rupert answered her.

"You're the last in." He sat outside the window, and as she approached,
he added, "And I hope you have had a happy time."

"Yes." She looked back into the room.

"Daniel wouldn't stay," Rupert went on, smoking his pipe placidly. "If
it hadn't been for my good offices, my dear, he'd have hauled Zebedee
off long ago. He suddenly thought of a plan for getting rid of Eliza.
Why aren't you thanking me?"

"He wouldn't have gone."

"Oh, ho!"

"But they ought to get rid of Eliza. I've told Zebedee."

"Quite right," Rupert said solemnly. His dark eyes twinkled at the
answering stars. "When I have lunch with Daniel, I'm afraid of being
poisoned, though she rather likes me, and she's offensively ugly--ugh!
Yet I like to think that even Eliza has had her little story. Are you
listening, Helen? I'm being pastoral and kind. I'm going to tell you how
Eliza fell in love with a travelling tinker."

"Is it true?"

"As true as anything else."

"Go on."

"It happened when Eliza was quite young, not beautiful, but fresh and
ruddy. She walked out one summer night to meet the farm hand who was
courting her, but he was not at the appointed place, so Eliza walked
on, and she had a sore heart because she thought her lover was
unfaithful. She was walking over high downs with hollows in them and the
grass cropped close by sheep, and there was a breeze blowing the smell
of clover from some field, and suddenly she stood on the edge of a
hollow in which a fire was burning, and by the fire there sat a man. He
looked big as