Helen was tired and lay extended on the divan in the grey dress she had not had time to change. She had doffed her hat and, thrusting its hatpins through it, had laid it on her knees, so that, as Gerald had remarked, she looked rather like Bruenhilde on her rocky couch. But, unlike Bruenhilde, her hands were clasped behind her neck, and she looked up at the ceiling. 'A perfect little dear,' she assented. 'Did you notice her eyes when she was talking about the foxes? They were as sorrowful and piteous as a Mater Dolorosa's. She is definite enough about some things, isn't she? Things like right and wrong, I mean, as she sees them.' 'Yes; she is clear about outside things, like right and wrong.' 'It's a good deal to be clear about, isn't it?' 'I suppose so,' Helen reflected. 'I don't feel that I really understand Althea. People who aren't clear about themselves are difficult to understand, I think.' 'It's that that really gives them a mystery. I feel that she really is a little mysterious,' said Gerald. 'One wonders what she would do in certain cases, and feel in certain situations, and one can't remotely imagine. She is a sealed book.' '_She_ wonders,' said Helen. 'And you suspect that her pages are empty?' Helen reflected, but nothing seemed to come. She closed her eyes, smiling, and said, 'Be off, please. I'm getting too sleepy to have suspicions. We have plenty of time to find out whether anything is written on Althea's pages.' CHAPTER VIII. But, when Gerald was gone, Helen found that she was no longer sleepy. She lay, her eyes closed, straight and still, like an effigy on a tomb, and she thought, intently and quietly. It was more a series of pictures than a linking of ideas with which her mind was occupied--pictures of her childhood and girlhood in Scotland and at Merriston House. It was dispassionately that she watched the little figure, lonely, violent, walking over the moors, hiding in the thickets of the garden, choking with tears of fury, clenching teeth over fierce resentments. She almost smiled at the sight of her. What constant resentments, what frequent furies! They centred, of course, about the figure of her mother, lovely, vindictive, and stony-hearted, as she had been and was. Helen's life had dawned in the consciousness of love for this beautiful mother, whom she had worshipped with the ardent humility of a little dog. Afterwards, with a vehemence as great, she had grown to hate her. All her girlhood had been filled with struggles against her mother. Sometimes for weeks they had not spoken to each other, epochs during which, completely indifferent though she was, Mrs. Buchanan had given herself the satisfaction of smartly boxing her daughter's ears when her mute, hostile presence too much exasperated her. There had been no refuge for Helen with her father, a gloomy man, immersed in sport and study, nor in her brother Nigel, gay and pleasant though he was. When once Nigel got