He watched them go across the yard, their heads bent towards each other, and Helen's pale arm like a streak on Miriam's dress. He heard their footsteps and the shifting of a horse in the stables, and a mingled smell of manure and early flowers crept up to him. The slim figures were now hardly separable from the wood, and they were frail and young and touching. He looked at them, and he was sorry for all the unworthy things he had ever done. It was Helen who made him feel like that, Helen who shone like a star, very far off, but not quite out of reach. She was the only star that night. Not one showed its face among the clouds, and there was no moon to wrinkle her droll features at the little men on earth. Helen was the star, shining in the larch-wood. He called her name, but she did not hear, and he seemed to be caught up by the sound and to float among the clouds. "It's like being converted," he told himself, and he followed slowly across the moor. CHAPTER XXV As the girls passed under the trees, Miriam began to cry. "Helen, if you hadn't come!" "But I did." "Yes, yes. To see you there! It was--oh! And then I fainted. What did you do to him?" "We needn't talk about it. And don't cry." She was afraid of having to hate this daring, helpless being who clung to her; yet she could hate no one who needed her, and she said tenderly, "Don't cry. It's over now." "Yes. I've lost my handkerchief." "Here's mine." "You're not angry with me, are you? How did you know I'd gone?" "I think the house told me. Oh, here's the moor. How good to get to it out of that pit. Come quickly. Notya--" "I can't come faster. Tell me what you said to him. Nothing I said was any good." "I managed him." "And I couldn't. Suppose he catches me again." "He won't. Can't you understand that he may not want you any more? Let us get home." "I'm doing my best. I wish I were a man. A woman can't have fun." "Fun!" "Oh, you're so good! I meant it for fun, and now he'll come after me again. Of course he wants me. He's in love with me." "There's love and love," Helen said. "And if you subtract one from the other--I don't know what I'm saying--there may be nothing left. If George does that little sum in the morning--" "I think it's done already." "I hope so. I'm miserable. I wish the sea would come up and wash me and make me forget. You're not holding me so lovingly as you did. In the kitchen you were sweet."