e at night, and, corresponding
to them, two natures had command of him. He saw Helen like dawn and
Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other
roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might
sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for
Miriam that he might mutter foul language, like loathed caresses.

Drink and desire and craving for peace were all at work in him. The
dreams he had been building were broken by a callous hand, and he sat
among the ruins. He could laugh, now, at his fair hopes, but they had
had their part in him, and he could never go back to the days when he
rode and drank and loved promiscuously, with a light heart. She had
robbed, too, when she cast down his house, but there was no end to her
offence, for when, out of coarser things, this timid love had begun to
creep, it had been thrown back at him with a gibe.

He was in a state when the strongest suggestion would have its way with
him. He wanted to make Miriam suffer; he wanted to be dealt with kindly,
and he had a pitiful and unconscious willingness to take another's
mould. So, when he saw Helen on the moor, the sneering born of her
distance from him changed slowly to a desire for nearness, and he
remembered with what friendliness they had sat together in the heather
one autumn night, and how peace had seemed to lie upon them both. A
woman like that might keep a man straight, he thought, and when she
stopped to speak to him one morning, her smile was balm to his hurts.

She looked at him in her frank way. "You don't look well, George."

"Oh--I'm all right," he said, hitting his gaiters with his stick.

"It's a lovely day," she said, "and you have some lambs already. I hope
the snow won't come and kill them."

"Hope not. We're bound to lose some of them, though."

Why, he asked himself angrily, was she not afraid of him who was
planning injury to her sister? She made him feel as though he could
never injure any one.

"You haven't noticed my dog," she said.

"Yes--" he began. He had been noticing him for days, marching beside her
against the sky. "He's a fine beast."

"Isn't he?" Her finger-tips were on Jim's head.

"You want a dog now there's no man in your house."

She laughed a little as she said, "And he feels his responsibility,
don't you, Jim?"

"Come here, lad," Halkett called to him. "Come on. That's right!"

"He seems to like you."

"I never knew the