"He called it collapse."

"How clever of him!"

"I have left the tea-things for you to wash, and will you please get
supper?"

"You needn't talk like that. I'm willing to do my share."

"You shirked it today, and though I know you're frightened of her,
that's no excuse for leaving me alone."

Miriam leaned on the table and asked in a gentler voice, "Is she likely
to be ill long?"

"It's very likely."

"Well, we shan't miss her while you are with us, but it's a pity, when
we might have peace. You're just like her. I hope you'll never have any
children, for they'd be as miserable as I am, only there wouldn't be one
like me. How could there be? One only has to think of Zebedee."

Helen stood up and brought her hand so heavily to the table that the
lamplight flared.

"Go!" she said, "go--" Her voice and body shook, her arms slid limply
over her mending, and she tumbled into her chair, crying with sobs that
seemed to quaver for a long time in her breast. Miriam could not have
imagined such a weeping, and it frightened her. With one finger she
touched Helen's shoulder, and over and over again she said, "I'm sorry,
Helen. I'm sorry. Don't cry. I'm sorry--" until she heard Rupert
whistling on the track. At that Helen stirred and wiped her eyes, but
Miriam darted from the room, shouted cheerfully to Rupert and, keeping
him in talk, led him to the dining-room, while Helen sat staring with
blurred eyes at the linen pile, and seeing the misery in Mildred
Caniper's face.

CHAPTER XX

It was a bitter winter, with more rain than snow, more snow than
sunshine, and it seemed to Helen that half her life was spent in
watching for Zebedee's figure bent against the storm as he drove up the
road, while Mildred Caniper lay slackly in her bed. She no longer stared
at the ceiling, for though her body had collapsed, her will had only
wavered, and it was righting itself slowly, and the old thoughts which
had been hunting her for years had not yet overcome her. Like hounds,
they bayed behind, and some day their breath would be on her neck, their
teeth in her flesh, and she would fall to them. This was the threat in
the sound which reached her, soft or loud, as bells are heard in the
wind, and in the meantime she steadied herself with varying arguments.
Said one of these, "The past is over," yet she saw the whole future of
these Canipers as the product of her acts. Reason, unsubdued, refused to
allow her so much power, and sh