"Mrs. Samson is a nice woman--very kind. She knows what I want. I must have a good fire. I don't need very much. She doesn't bother me--or talk. I don't want to be bothered--about anything. I'm still--rather tired. I like to sit here and be warm. Give me that magazine, Helen. There's a story--" She found the place and seemed to forget all she had said. Helen left the room and, as she sat on the topmost stair, she wished Mr. Pinderwell would stop and speak to her, but he hurried up and down as he had always done, intent on his own sad business of seeking what he had lost. It was strange that he could not see the children who were so plain to Helen. She turned to speak to them, but she had outgrown them in these days, and even Jane was puzzled by her grief that Mildred Caniper wanted to be kept warm, and, with some lingering faculty, wished Helen to be happy, but needed her no longer. Helen whispered into the dimness because her thoughts were unwholesome and must be cast forth. "She only wants to be kept warm! It was sweet of her to try to think of me, but she couldn't go on thinking. Oh, Jane, Mrs. Samson and I are just the same. She doesn't mind who puts coals on the fire. I wish she'd die. I always loved her very much, and she loved me, but now she doesn't. She's just a--bundle. It's ugly. If I stay here and look at her, I shall get like her. Oh--she wants me to go and live with Zebedee. Zebedee! He wouldn't like me to go on like this. The philosophers--but that old bishop can't make me think that Notya isn't dying. That's what she's doing, Jane--dying. But no, dying is good and death is splendid. This is decay." She stood up and shuddered. "I mustn't stay here," she murmured sensibly. She called to Jim in a loud voice that attempted cheerfulness and alarmed her with its noise in the silent house of sorrow and disease. "The moor, Jim!" she said, and when she had passed through the garden with the dog leaping round her, she shook her skirts and held up her palms to get the freshness of the wind on them. "We'll find water," she said, but she would not go to the stream that ran into the larch-wood. Today, the taint of evil was about Halkett's Farm, as that of decay was in Mildred Caniper's room. "We'll go to the pool where the rushes are, Jim, and wash our hands and face." They ran fleetly, and as they went she saw George at a distance on his horse. He waved his hat, and, before she knew what she was doing, she answered with a grimace that mocked him viciously and horrified her with its spontaneity. She cried aloud, and, sinking to the ground, she hid her dishonoured face. "No, no," she moaned. She hated that action like an obscenity. Surely she was tainted, too. Jim licked her covering hands, and whined when she paid no heed.