almost pleaded, and
she went, at the first opportunity, from the room.

She encountered Jane's solemn and sympathetic stare. "I can't have
neglected him, can I?" she asked of the little girl in the pinafore, and
the shadows on the landing once more became alive with the unknown. "He
does cough a lot, Jane, but he says it's nothing, and he tells the
truth." She added involuntarily and with her hand at her throat, "I've
been so happy," and immediately the words buzzed round her with menace.
She should not have said that; it was a thing hardly to be thought, and
she had betrayed her secret, but it comforted her to remember that this
was nearly the end of January, and before long the Easter fires would
burn again and she could pray.

Between the present and that one hour in the year when she might ask for
help, Zebedee's cough persisted and grew worse. He had to own to a
weakness of the lungs; he suffered every winter, more or less, and
there had been one which had driven him to warmer climes.

"And you never told me that before!" she cried, with her hand in that
tell-tale position at her throat.

"My dear, there has been no time to tell you anything. There hasn't been
one day when we could be lavish. We've counted seconds. Would I talk
about my lungs?"

"Perhaps we don't really know each other," Helen said, hoping he would
not intercept this hostage she was offering to fortune, and she looked
at him under her raised brows, and smiled a little, tempting him.

"We don't," he said firmly, and she drew a breath. "We only know we want
each other, and all the rest of our lives is to be the adventure of
finding each other out."

"But I'm not adventurous," she said.

"Oh, you'll like it," he assured her, smiling with his wonderfully white
teeth and still more with the little lines round his eyes. He looked at
her with that practical air of adoration which was as precious to her as
his rare caress; she felt doubly honoured because, in his love-making,
he preserved a humour which did not disguise his worship of her. "You'll
like it," he said cheerfully. "Why don't you marry me now and take care
of me?"

She made a gesture towards the upper room. "How can I?"

"No, you can't. Not," he added, "so much on that account, as simply
because you can't. I'd rather wait a few months more--"

"You must," she said, and faintly irritated him. She looked at her
clasped hands. "Zebedee, do you feel you want to be taken care of?" Her