Windless lay in the sunlight, genial, wise, sincere, with the girth of high living and the forehead of high thought. One did not have to specify in the presence of Windless. Everything was understood. Yet Mrs. Mavering asked. "I suppose it isn't Morgan Map at all?" Helen answered "No," promptly enough, and fell into sombre silence. The eastern slope of Windless darkened in the shadow of the lessening afternoon, while the western only seemed to glimmer the more genially; there was that advantage in being large. "You see," she went on, "it suits Morgan, fighting and ordering and doing things. Nothing ever hurts him. I don't see why I should bother about him when he's having a good time." "It's enough if you don't." "Well, Lady Rachel, then that's it. I don't." "Then we won't say what it is?" "No, please." "But I suppose we can know?" Helen rolled over with a laugh, and hid her mouth a moment in the stubby grass. "Let's go home." Widow Bourn said, "Why, Helen!" immediately. Thaddeus went with Rachel into the garden, and walked beside her up and down the path between the porch and the lilac gate. "It isn't Morgan Map. She doesn't bother about him at all." "She doesn't? Dear me!" "But I think it might be better, after all." "What is it, then? Why can't she be contented? My dear lady, my poor intelligence struggles with the subject, but you and Helen--hospitals, drudgery, dirt, pah! vermin. I knew she had the notion. I labelled it properly, 'Notion.' I was aware the Helen estate was not returning the--a--interest it should. I admit my commission from it has in consequence this summer been very meagre--most irregular. I believe I appreciate, I strive to understand, your difficult sex--my lifelong endeavor--but at present, so to speak, if I may say so, it 'gets me.'" "Helen has perhaps more nervous energy than is common." "Nervous! But might we not almost say, of late, feverish?" "Perhaps we might." "Then what--or rather, why?" "If Helen had her secrets it would not follow that she would confess them to me, and surely you would know as quickly as I if she had any. But if I have any intimation you must let me keep it, and only say that, perhaps, it would be good for her." Thaddeus shrugged his shoulders, and went down, immaculately, to the post-office to consult. "Pete, the opportunities you've lost to study women! But you might, possibly, say something at random. What's all this for?" Mr. Paulus's face was like the Sphinx's for extent massiveness and lack of expression, but his left eyelid was variable. He pondered some moments. "What did you an' me steal pigs for? Did we want the pigs? No. Did we want to see Starr Atherton in his nightshirt? Some--not much. Well, it was a way we had of puttin' what was in our minds. What's in will out. That girl'd bust out somewhere. If it ain't measles, it's boils. That's what I say. What's in will out." * * * * *