that, though. Helen, I wish she hadn't died. Do you think we were more
unpleasant than we need have been?"

"Not much. She was unpleasanter than we were, really, but then--"

"Heavens, yes. What a life!"

Her lips framed the words in echo, but she did not utter them, though
she alone had the right.

"So perhaps I am not sorry she is dead," Rupert said.

Helen's lips tilted in a smile. "I don't think you need ever be sorry
that any one is dead," she said, and before she could hear what her
words told him, he spoke quickly.

"Well, what about this house?"

"I shan't let it."

"Will you live here?"

"No. I'm going to George, but no one else shall have it. I don't think
the Pinderwells would be happy. Is there any furniture you want? You can
have anything except what's in the dining-room. That's for Zebedee. His
own is hideous."

To Zebedee she said, "You'll take it, won't you?"

"I've always taken everything you've given me," he said, and with the
words they seemed to look at each other fairly for the last time.

"And don't have any more dead ferns," she told him. "There was one in
the dining-room the other day. You must keep fresh flowers on Mr.
Pinderwell's table."

"I shall remember."

Nothing was left in the house except the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's
bride, who smiled as prettily on the empty room as on the furnished one.

"She must stay with Mr. Pinderwell," Helen said. "What would he do if he
found her gone? I wonder if they'll miss us."

She refused to leave the house until the last cart had gone down the
road at which Helen must no longer look in hope. She watched the slow
departure of the cart and held to the garden gate, rubbing it with her
hands. She looked up at the long house with its wise, unblinking eyes.
She had to leave it: George was waiting for her at the farm, but the
house was like a part of her, and she was not complete when she turned
away from it.

There was daylight on the moor, but when she dipped into the larch-wood
she found it was already night, and night lay on the cobbled courtyard,
on the farmhouse, and on George, who waited in the doorway.

"You're like you were before," he said. "A silver star coming through
the trees--coming to me." He took her hand. "I don't know why you do
it," he murmured, and led her in.

They slept in a room papered with a pattern of roses and furnished with
a great fourposted bed. It was the room in which George Halkett and his
father ha