"No, no, Helen! Not for my sake this time, but for yours! No! I didn't mean it. Believe me, I could be glad if you were happy." "I shan't be happy without you, but if I can't have you, why shouldn't I do my best for him?" He looked at the floor and said, "Helen, I can't let him touch you." He looked up. "Have you thought of everything?" "There have been days and days to think in." "My dear, it isn't possible! To give you into his hands!" "I shall keep out of them if I can, and no one else can do it for me. Remember that, or you will push me into them. But I'm trying to make my body a little thing. It's only a body, after all. Zebedee, will you let me sit on your knee? Just this once more. Oh, how your arms know how to hold me! I hope--I hope you'll never have to marry any one for Daniel's sake." He rested his cheek on hers. "Daniel will have to look after himself. Men don't hurt the people they love best for the sake of some one else. That's a woman's trick." "You never talked like this before." "Because, you see, no woman had ever hurt me so much." "And now she has." "Oh, yes, she has." "And you love me less?" "Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for myself." "I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting me." "And you won't feel me?" "You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come between. George can't." "But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and down the room. "Had you thought of that?" She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?" "You know I did." "And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone--just slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful." "In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I went away." "Our house?" "Our square house--with the trees." She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly through those thoughts. "Zebedee, I want to tell you something." "Go on, dear." "I want to tell you--I--He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'" "I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have." "Oughtn't I to?"