"Then I hope she'll die," she said in a low voice. "My dear!" He was startled into the words, and they made her laugh openly for joy of knowing they were ready on his tongue. Lightly she swayed towards him, but he held her off. "No, no, my heart." He turned deliberately from her. "Why do you wish that?" "Because of Miriam. She ought to die." "I'm afraid she won't. She's pretty tough." "Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like." He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel. "There's a servant there who seems capable enough." "I wonder why George didn't tell me." "She was all right yesterday." "You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too." "There isn't any need." "But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now." She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made me feel clean again. Notya--oh--!" She shuddered. "She looks like some fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and everything was over-ripe." "You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff--philosophy, for instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"--he was at the gate and he looked back at her--"you are rather like a blade yourself." He knew the curing properties of praise. CHAPTER XXXIV When evening came, the blue colour of the sky had changed to one that was a memory of the earth's new green. Helen went through the garden to the moor and sat there on a grey rock out of which her own grey figure might have been carved. She watched the stars blink forth and stare; she saw the gradual darkening of the world, and then Halkett's moving shape came towards her. Out here, he was in his proper place: the kitchen made him clumsy, but wide places set him off, and she felt a kind of pride in his quickness and his strength. "George," she said softly as he would have passed her, and he swung round and bent and took her in his arms, without hesitation or mistake. "Were you waiting for me?" he whispered, and felt her nod against his coat. She freed herself very gently. "Shall we stay out here?" he said. "No. I have left Notya long enough." "What made you wait for me?"