"You didn't." "I don't wear this flimsy rubbish. Go back to bed." "Yes. What's the time?" "One o'clock. The longest night I've ever known!" Rather wistfully she looked at him. "What's the matter, John?" "I'm waiting for tomorrow," he said almost roughly. "So am I," she said, surprising herself so that she repeated the words slowly, to know their meaning. "So am I--and it's here." "Not till the dawn," he said. "Go to sleep." Together their doors were softly closed and Helen knew now whose footsteps were in the children's garden. She went to the window and nodded to the poplars. "And you knew, I suppose; but so did I, really, all the time." She slept profoundly and woke to a new wonder for the possibilities of life, a new fear for the dangers which might assail those who had much to cherish; and now she descried dimly the truth she was one day to see in the full light, that there is no gain without loss and no loss without gain, that things are divinely balanced, though man may sometimes throw his clumsy weight into the scale. Yet under these serious thoughts there was a song in her heart and her pleasure in its music shone out of her eyes so brilliantly that Rupert, watching her with tolerant amusement, asked what had befallen her. "It's only that it's Sunday," the quick-witted Miriam said and Helen replied with the gravity which was more misleading than a lie: "Yes, that's all." Nevertheless, when Zebedee arrived on the moor, her brightness faded. Already the desire of possession hurt her and Miriam had attached herself to him as though she owned him. She was telling him about Philip Caniper's death, about the money which was to come to them, and asserting that Daniel now wanted to marry her more than ever. Daniel was protesting through his blushes, and Zebedee was laughing. It all seemed very foolish, and she was annoyed with Zebedee for even pretending to be amused. "Oh, don't," she murmured and lay back. "Be quiet, prig!" "She's not that, is she?" Zebedee asked, his strangely flecked eyes twinkling. "Oh, a bad one. She disapproves of everything she doesn't like herself." "Helen, wake up! I want to know if this is true." "Do you think it is?" "I'm afraid it's very likely." "Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I don't know what to do about it. A person without opinions is just nothing, and you really were being very silly just now. I hate jokes about marrying." "H'm, they are rather feeble," Zebedee owned. "Vulgar, I think," she said, with her little air of Mildred Caniper. "Ah," said Rupert, tapping Daniel lightly on the head, "a man with a brain like this can't develop a taste for the real thing. I've seen him shaking over jokes that made me want to cry, but you mustn't expect too much of him. He does very well. Come along, my boy, and let's have some reasonable talk." "He doesn't want to go!" Miriam cried. "But he must. I know what's good for him."