"Is there anybody to look after her? I could go sometimes, if you like."
He smiled at this confusion of ministering and avenging angel.
"There's a servant there who seems capable enough."
"I wonder why George didn't tell me."
"She was all right yesterday."
"You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too."
"There isn't any need."
"But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now."
She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made me feel clean again. Notya—oh—!" She shuddered. "She looks like some fruit just hanging to a tree. Soon she will slip, and she doesn't care. She doesn't think. And once she was like a blade, so bright and edged. And when I looked at her this morning, I felt as if I were fattening and rotting, too, and it wasn't spring any longer. It was autumn, and everything was over-ripe."
"You don't take enough exercise," he said briskly. "Walk on the moor every day. It's only fair to Jim. Read something stiff—philosophy, for instance. It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not, so long as you try. Promise you'll do that. I'll bring some books tomorrow. Take them as medicine and you'll find they're food. And, Helen"—he was at the gate and he looked back at her—"you are rather like a blade yourself."