She could not tell him. If he did not understand how every note from Harry's violin would jab and tear the tortured memories she was trying to put to sleep--if he did not understand that of himself, she would never be able to explain it to him. As a matter of fact he did understand, but he was resolute. "Help me, Naomi," he pleaded, "fur I can't manage wudout you." His eyes searched her face. People who met him only casually were generally left with the impression that he had black eyes, but as a matter of fact they were dark blue. A hidden power forced Naomi's eyes to meet them ... they were narrow and deep-set, with extraordinarily long lashes. She gazed into them for a moment without speaking. Then suddenly her own filled with an expression of hatred, and she ran out of the room. But he had won his point. That evening Naomi made Harry play over his "tunes," while Reuben sat in the chimney corner watching them both. Harry's memory was erratic--he would play through some well-known airs quite correctly up to a certain point, and then interpolate hysterical variations of his own. At other times memory failed him altogether, but his natural quickness of ear seemed to have increased since his blindness, and it only needed Naomi to sing the passage over for him to fill up the gaps. She took him through "The Woodpecker Tapping," "Dearest Ellen," "I'd mourn the hopes that leave me," "The Song of Seth's House," and "The Blue Bells of Scotland." Each one of them was torment to her gentle heart, as it woke memory after memory of courtship--on the gorse-slopes of Boarzell, among the chasing shadows of Iden Wood, on the Rother marshes by Thornsdale, where the river slinks up from the Fivewatering ... or in this very kitchen here, where the three of them, divided from one another by dizzy gaps of suffering, desire and darkness, were gathered together in a horrible false association. But Harry's face was blank, no memories seemed to stir for him, he just fiddled on, now and then receiving Naomi's corrections with an outbreak of childish temper. On these occasions Reuben would stamp his foot and speak to him in a loud, angry voice which inevitably made him behave himself. Naomi always took advantage of these returns to docility, but later that evening in the dairy, she suddenly swung round on Mrs. Backfield and exclaimed petulently: "I hate that Ben of yours!" § 11.