re!"

Her face was crushed against him, and it was indeed as though she were
covered by something dark and warm and heavy. She might hear beloved
footsteps, now and then, but they would not trouble her. Down there, she
knew too much to be disturbed, too much to be hurt for ever by her
lover's pain: he, too, would know a blessed burying.

It was not she who heard the opening of the bedroom door, but she felt
herself being gently pushed from George's breast, and she had a strange
feeling that some one was shovelling away the earth which she had found
so merciful.

"No," she said. "Don't. I like it."

"Helen!" she heard George say, and she turned to see Mildred Caniper on
the threshold.

"I heard voices," she said, looking a little dazed, but standing with
her old straightness. "Who is here? It's Helen! It's--Helen! Oh,
Helen--you!" Her face hardened, and her voice was the one of Helen's
childhood. "I am afraid I must ask for an explanation of this
extraordinary conduct."

The words were hardly done before she fell heavily to the floor.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Mildred Caniper died two days afterwards, without opening her eyes. Day
and night, Helen watched and wondered whether, behind that mask, the
mind was moving to acquaintance with the truth. Between life and death,
she imagined a grey land where things were naked, neither clothed in
disguising garments nor in glory. It might be that, for the first time,
Mildred saw herself, looked into her own life and all the lives she
knew, and gained a wider knowledge for the next. Nevertheless, it was
horrible to Helen that Mildred Caniper had finally shut her eyes on the
scene that killed her, and, for her last impression, had one of falsity
and licence. Helen prayed that it might be removed, and, as she kept
watch that first night, she told her all. There might be a little cranny
through which the words could go, and she longed for a look or touch of
forgiveness and farewell. She loved this woman whom she had served, but
there were to be no more messages between them, and Mildred Caniper died
with no other sound than the lessening of the sighing breaths she drew.

Zebedee guessed the nature of the shock that killed her, but only George
and Helen knew, and for them it was another bond; they saw each other
now with the eyes of those who have looked together on something never
to be spoken of and never to be forgotten. She liked to have him with
her, and he was dumb with