"Gard, is it? This little melodrama is well done. Exit John Mavering into the jaws of hell. What comes next? My pearl of a wife, my gentle and frightened dove, _will_ you kindly state what you are up to?" "It's Helen--" "Helen! Helen, avaunt! I'm done." "Oh, Jack, it all depends on him! Don't you see?" "I see you care much for Windham, and perhaps yon girl with the yellow hair, and have a sensitive dislike for me. Gods! she's pretty, yon girl, but she ought to be fatter. I don't know whether Windham's dead or not, but he looked like a consumptive plaster-cast when I saw him--been ploughed and harrowed by a shell and made ready to be planted for immortality, I inferred, but didn't inquire. What do I care for him or the said girl who is pretty but should be fatter? What do I care for you? I don't know. But if you propose matrimony for the two, I'll go so far in friendship as to tell him he'd much better be planted. Am I such slime to your cultured taste? Say so, then, and, by God! you've seen the last of me." Rachel recovered herself. She still held his arm. She pressed nearer and was silent a moment. The steamer below the bank was brightly lit, the docks bustling and noisy. "You needn't go. Come and help me, and ask what you like. I think you love me a little. Perhaps I was wrong in the beginning." They went back towards the house. Mavering admitted a degree of bewilderment. When Rachel was in a state of self-possession, it was difficult not to feel inferior. There were times--moments of weakness--when Mavering confessed a sensation towards her, never elsewhere directed, and which might be called respect--a hesitation, a summons somehow to draw back the great muddy river of event as well as the confluent stream of his own imperturbable comment, to turn them aside from pouring over her. It must have cost time and selection to make Rachel, and the Mississippi lacked discrimination. Helen sat as before, listlessly. Rachel knelt beside her and whispered. Helen started; the listless hand gripped the arm of the chair with a vigor that tore the cushion. She broke from Rachel's arms. "Where is he?" "Gods!" murmured Mavering, in deprecation. "This race of women! About six miles back of the Creek landing." "The steamer goes out at ten. Pack a basket, Rachel." Helen left the room with a rush. Mavering looked after her with wakened interest. "Who and what is this?" Rachel came to him and pleaded. "I owe her everything. You left me so desperate--" "I left you? I seem to have forgotten that." "I thought there was nothing more for me. She brought me to life again. Help her, Jack. I think we can neither of us change. I think it will be the old story again. But I'll try." Mavering looked down and felt a touch of compunction curious to himself.