"I didn't, but I do now, and I'm going."
He followed her to the wood's edge and there she turned.
"If your head is so weak you ought never to take spirits."
"My head isn't weak, and I'm not a drunkard. Ask any one. It's you that are—"
She offered the word—"Intoxicating?" And she let a smile break through her lips before she ran away.
She felt no mental revulsion against his embrace; the physical one was only against the smell of spirits which she disliked, and she was the richer for an experience she did not want to repeat. She saw no reason, however, why he should not be tempted to offer it. She had tasted of the fruit, and now she desired no more than the delight of seeing it held out to her and refusing it.
The moor was friendly to her as she crossed it and if she had suffered from any sense of guilt, it would have reassured her. Spread under the pale colour of the declining sun, she thought it was a big eye that twinkled at her. She looked at the walls of her home and felt unwilling to be enclosed by them; she looked towards the road, and seeing the doctor's trap, she decided to stay on the moor until he had been and gone, and when at last she entered she found the house ominously dark and quiet. The familiar scent of the hall was a chiding in itself and she went nervously to the schoolroom, where a line of light marked its meeting with the floor.
Helen sat by the table, mending linen in the lamplight. She gave one upward glance and went on working.
"Well?" Miriam said.
"Well?"