"Of course not. The difficulty is that there seems nothing to tell. She was so quiet, as I remember her, and so meek, and yet one felt quite safe with her. I don't think she was afraid, as I was, but there was something, something that made things uncertain. I can't explain." "I expect she was too gentle at the beginning," Helen said. "She let him have his own way and then she was never able to catch up, and all the time--all the time she was thinking perhaps you were going to suffer because she had made that mistake. And that would make her so anxious not to make another, wouldn't it? And so--" "And so it would go on. But how did you discover that?" "Oh, I know some things," she said, and ended feebly, "about some things." "She died when I was thirteen and Daniel three, and my father was very unhappy." "I didn't like your father a bit," Miriam said. "He was a good man in his way, his uncomfortable way." "Then I like them wickeder than that." "It made him uncomfortable too, you know." "If you're going to preach--" He laughed. "I didn't mean to. I was only offering you the experience of my maturity!" "Well, I'm getting stiff and cold. Helen likes that kind of thing. Give it to her while I get warm. Unless you'll lend me your shawl, Helen?" "No, I won't." "I must go too," said Zebedee, but he did not move and Helen did not speak. His thoughts were on her while his eyes were on the dark line of moor touching the sky; yet he thought less of her than of the strange ways of life and the force which drew him to this woman whom he had known a child so short a time ago. He wondered if what he felt were real, if the night and the mystery of the moor had not bewitched him, for she had come to him at night out of the darkness with the wind whistling round her. It was so easy, as he knew, for a solitary being to fasten eagerly on another, like a beaten boat to the safety of a buoy, but while he thus admonished himself, he had no genuine doubt. He knew that she was what he wanted: her youth, her wisdom, her smoothness, her serenity, and the many things which made her, even the stubbornness which underlay her calm. Into these reflections her voice came loudly, calling him from the heights. "I do wish you wouldn't keep Eliza. She's a most unsuitable person to look after you." He laughed so heartily and so long that she sat up to look at him. "I don't know what's amusing you," she said. "It's so extraordinarily like you!" "Oh!" "And why don't you think her suitable?" "From things Daniel has told me." "Oh, Daniel is an old maid. She's ugly and disagreeable, but she delivers messages accurately, and that's all I care about. Don't believe all Daniel's stories." "They worry me," she said. "Do you worry about every one's affairs?" he asked, and feared she would hear the jealousy in his voice. "I know so few people, you see. Oughtn't I to?" "I'm humbly thankful," he said with a light gravity.