s in at the front door, I shall go out at the back. I shall have to
give up even the little I now have. Let me just face what it means.

"Yet perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps Cynthia isn't as mean-spirited as I
think.

"It's wonderful about the boy. I envy Cynthia--I can't help it. I would
have given my whole life to it. I would have been trained--perhaps
abroad. No one should have taught him but me. But then--if Philip had
loved me--only that was never possible!--he would have been jealous of
the boy--and I should have lost him. I never do things in moderation. I
go at them so blindly. But I shall learn some day."

Thoughts like these, and many others, were rushing through Helena's mind,
as after a long walk she found her seat again over the swollen stream.
The evening had shaken itself free of the storm, and was pouring an
incredible beauty on wood and river. The intoxication of it ran through
Helena's veins. For she possessed in perfection that earth-sense, that
passionate sense of kinship, kinship both of the senses and the spirit,
with the eternal beauty of the natural world, which the gods implant in a
blest minority of mortals. No one who has it can ever be wholly forlorn,
while sense and feeling remain.

Suddenly:--a little figure on the opposite bank, and a child's cry.

Helena sprang to her feet in dismay. She saw the landlord's small son, a
child of five, who had evidently lost his footing on the green bank above
the crag which faced her, and was sliding down, unable to help himself,
towards the point where nothing could prevent his falling headlong into
the stream below. The bank, however, was not wholly bare. There were some
thin gnarled oaks upon it, which might stop him.

"Catch hold of the trees, Bobby!" she shouted to him, in an agony.

The child heard, turned a white face to her, and tried to obey. He was
already a stalwart little mountaineer, accustomed to trot over the fells
after his father's sheep, and the physical instinct in his, sturdy limbs
saved him. He caught a jutting root, held on, and gradually dragged
himself up to the cushion of moss from which the tree grew, sitting
astride the root, and clasping the tree with both arms. The position was
still extremely dangerous, but for the moment he was saved.

"All right, Bobby--clever boy! Hold tight--I'm coming!"

And she rushed towards a little bridge at the head of the ravine. But
before she could reach it, she saw the lad's father, cautiousl