"I don't want to," said Helen under her breath. And in her thoughts she was crying, "The last time? Then it must be soon, soon! I'll make you listen to me now!" "I want to sleep," said Peter. She left the room. Tears of helplessness and misery filled her eyes. She was almost angry with him, but more angry with herself; but her self-anger was mixed with shame. She was ashamed that he made her feel so much, while he felt nothing. Did he feel nothing? "It's my stupidity that keeps us apart," she whispered. "I will break through it!" As quickly as she had left him she returned, and stood by the bed. He was lying with his hand pressed over his eyes. When he was conscious of her being there, his hand fell, and his keen eyes shot into hers. His brows contracted. "You nuisance," he muttered, and hid his eyes again. She turned and left him. When she got outside the door she leaned against it and shook from head to foot. She hovered on the brink of her delusions and felt as though she would soon crash into a precipice. She longed for him to go before she fell. Yes, she began to long for the time when he should go, and end this pain, and leave her to the old strange life that had been so sweet. His living presence killed it. After that third day she had had no more fears for his safety, and he was strong and rallied quickly. The gull too was saved. He saved it. It had drooped and sickened with her. She did not know what to do with it. On the fourth day as he was so much better, she brought it to him. He reset its wing and kept it by him, making it his patient and his playfellow. It thrived at once and grew tame to his hand. He fondled and talked to it like a lover. She would watch him silently with her smoldering eyes as he fed and caressed the bird, and jabbered to it in scraps of a dozen foreign tongues. His tenderness smote her heart. "You're not very fond of birds," he said to her once, when she had been sitting in one of her silences while he played with his pet. The words, question or statement, filled her with anger. She would not trust herself to protest or deny. "I don't know much about them," she said. "That's a pity," said Peter coolly. "The more you know em the more you have to love em. Yet you could love them for all sorts of things without knowing them, I'd have thought." She said nothing. "For their beauty, now. That's worth loving. Look at this one--you're a beauty all right, aren't you, my pretty? Not many girls to match you." He paused, and ran his finger down the bird's throat and breast. "Perhaps you don't think she's beautiful," he said to Helen. "Yes, she's beautiful," said Helen, with a difficulty that sounded like reluctance. "Ah, you don't think so. You ought to see her flying. You shall some day. When her hurt's mended she'll fly--I'll let her go." "Perhaps she won't go," said Helen. "Oh, yes, she will. How can she stop in a place like this? This is no air for her--she must fly in her own."