urned from
a midday walk, and stood silently before Helen who was reading in the
verandah.

"I've taken a room over there," he said.

"You're not going?" she exclaimed.

"On the whole--yes," he remarked. "No private cook _can_ cook
vegetables."

Knowing his dislike of questions, which she to some extent shared,
Helen asked no more. Still, an uneasy suspicion lurked in her mind that
William was hiding a wound. She flushed to think that her words, or her
husband's, or Rachel's had penetrated and stung. She was half-moved to
cry, "Stop, William; explain!" and would have returned to the subject at
luncheon if William had not shown himself inscrutable and chill, lifting
fragments of salad on the point of his fork, with the gesture of a man
pronging seaweed, detecting gravel, suspecting germs.

"If you all die of typhoid I won't be responsible!" he snapped.

"If you die of dulness, neither will I," Helen echoed in her heart.

She reflected that she had never yet asked him whether he had been in
love. They had got further and further from that subject instead of
drawing nearer to it, and she could not help feeling it a relief when
William Pepper, with all his knowledge, his microscope, his note-books,
his genuine kindliness and good sense, but a certain dryness of
soul, took his departure. Also she could not help feeling it sad that
friendships should end thus, although in this case to have the room
empty was something of a comfort, and she tried to console herself with
the reflection that one never knows how far other people feel the things
they might be supposed to feel.

Chapter VIII

The next few months passed away, as many years can pass away, without
definite events, and yet, if suddenly disturbed, it would be seen that
such months or years had a character unlike others. The three months
which had passed had brought them to the beginning of March. The climate
had kept its promise, and the change of season from winter to spring
had made very little difference, so that Helen, who was sitting in the
drawing-room with a pen in her hand, could keep the windows open though
a great fire of logs burnt on one side of her. Below, the sea was still
blue and the roofs still brown and white, though the day was fading
rapidly. It was dusk in the room, which, large and empty at all times,
now appeared larger and emptier than usual. Her own figure, as she sat
writing with a pad on her knee, shared the general effect