"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" She twisted her hands together. "George, don't make me hate you."
"No," he said with a strange meekness. "Shall I take her to the kitchen? It'll be warm there, and the fire won't be out. I'll carry her."
"But I don't like you to touch her," Helen stated with a simplicity that had its fierceness.
"It's just as if she's dead," he said in a low voice, and at Helen's frightened gasp, he added—"I mean for me."
"Take her," she said, and when he had obeyed she sat on her heels and stared at nothing. For her, a mist was in the room, but through it there loomed the horrid familiarity of Halkett's bed, his washstand and a row of boots. Why was she here? What had she done? She heard him asking gently, "Aren't you coming?" and she remembered. She had promised to marry George because Miriam had been lying on the floor, because, years ago, the woman lying alone in Pinderwell House had brought the Canipers to the moor where George lived and was brutal and was going to marry her. But it could not be true, for, in some golden past, before this ugliness fell between her and beauty, she had promised to marry Zebedee. She held her head to think. No, of course she had given him no promise. They had come together like birds, like bees to flowers—
"Aren't you coming?" Halkett asked again.
She rose. Yes, here was her promised man. She had bought Miriam with a price. She stumbled after him down the stairs.
In the warmth of the kitchen, by the light of a glowing fire and a single candle, Miriam's eyelids fluttered and lay back.
"It's all right, darling," Helen said. "You're quite safe. You're with Helen, with Helen, dear."
Behind Miriam's eyes, thoughts like butterflies with wet wings were struggling to be free.