"And if I bemoaned my loneliness, how my collars get lost in the wash, how tired I am of Eliza's cooking and her face, how bad my cough is, then you'd let me carry you away?" "I might. Zebedee--are those things true, too?" "Not particularly." "And your cough isn't bad?" He hesitated. "It is rather bad." "And you're a doctor!" "But my dear, darling, love--I've no control over the weather." "You ought to go away," she said in a low voice. "I hope it won't come to that," he said. It was Rupert who asked her a week later if she had jilted Zebedee. "Why?" she asked quickly. "He's ill, woman." "I know." "But really ill. You ought to send him away until the spring." Her lips moved for a few seconds before she uttered "Yes," and after that sound she was mute under the double fear of keeping him and parting from him, but, since to let him go would give her the greater pain, it was the lesser fear, and it might be that the powers who were always waiting near to demand a price would, in this manner, let her get her paying done. She welcomed the chance of paying in advance and she kept silence while she strengthened herself to do it bravely. Because she did not speak, Rupert elaborated. "When Zebedee loses his temper, there's something wrong." "Has he done that?" "Daniel daren't speak to him." "He never speaks to people: he expounds." "True; but your young man was distinctly short with me, even me, yesterday. Listen to your worldly brother, Helen. Why don't you marry him and take him into the sun? It's shining somewhere, one supposes." "I can't." "Why not? There's Miriam." "What good is she?" "You never give her a chance. You're one of those self-sacrificing, selfish people who stunt other people's growth. It's like not letting a baby learn to walk for fear it falls and hurts itself, or tumbles into the best flower-beds and ruins 'em. Have you ever thought of that?" "But she's happier than she used to be," Helen said and smiled as though nothing more were needed. "And soon she will be going away. She won't stay after she is twenty-one." "D'you think that fairy-tale is going to come true?" "Oh, yes. She always does what she wants, you know. And she is counting on Uncle Alfred, though she says she isn't. She had a letter from him the other day." "And when she has gone, what are you going to do?" "I don't know what I'm going to do." "Things won't be easier for you then. You'd better face that." "But she'll be better--Notya will be better." "And you'll marry Zebedee." "I don't like saying what I'm going to do." Rupert's dark eyes had a hard, bright light. "Are you supposed to love that unfortunate man? Look here, you're not going to be tied to Notya all her life. Zebedee and I won't have it." "What's going to happen to her, then?" "Bless the child! She's grown up. She can look after herself." "But I can't leave just you and her in this house together."