her, for, by her own act, she would be chained more
firmly than Andromeda when Zebedee next came up the road.

"I must get it over," she whispered quickly, and she sat down where she
had stood. She had to keep her promise, and now that there was no one in
the way, the thing must be done before Zebedee could come and fight for
her, lest people should be hurt and precious things broken: her word,
and peace, and the beauty of the moor. Yet things were broken already:
life limped; it would never go quite smoothly again.

She wondered what God was doing in His own place; it seemed that He had
too much to do, or had He been careless at the beginning of things and
let them get out of hand? She was sorry for Him. It must be dreary to
look down on His work and see it going wrong. He was probably looking at
her now and clicking His tongue in vexation. "There's Helen Caniper. She
ought to have married the doctor. That's what I meant her to do. What's
gone wrong? Miriam? I ought to have watched her. Dear, dear, dear! I
oughtn't to have set them going at all if I couldn't keep them
straight." So her thoughts ran as she sat with her head bowed to her
knees, but she remembered how, in George's room that night, with Miriam
on the floor, she had called to God without premeditation, with the
naturalness of any cry for help, and in a fashion, He had heard her. No
one had taught her to pray and until then she had called on no god but
the one behind the smoke. Perhaps this other one had a power which she
could not understand.

She looked up, and saw a sky miraculously arched and stretching beyond
sight and imagination, and she thought, simply enough, that, having made
the sky, God might be tired. And surely He had proved Himself: a being
who had created this did not make small mistakes with men. It was some
human creature who had failed, and though it seemed like Miriam, might
it not be herself? Or Mildred Caniper, or some cause beyond Mildred
Caniper, going back and back, like the waves of the sea? It was
impossible to fix the blame, foolish to try, unnecessary to know it. The
thing had happened: it might be good, yet when she heard Halkett's voice
behind her, she was only conscious of bitter evil.

"I want to talk to you," he said.

"Yes?"

He came into her view and looked down scowlingly. "I don't know what
you've been up to, but I'd better tell you to begin with that I'm not a
fool."

She frowned at his manner, but she said pat