"She might get up and walk about and say things. It isn't right for you, or for me and you, to have to live here. Why doesn't Zebedee do something? Why doesn't he take you away?"
"And leave her? I wouldn't go. The moor has hold of me, and it will keep me always. I'm rooted here, and I shall tell George to bury me on a dark night in some marshy place that's always green. And I shall make it greener. You're frightened of me! Don't be silly! I'm saner than most people, I think, but living alone makes one different, perhaps. Don't look like that. I'm the same Helen."
"Yes. I won't be frightened. But why did you say 'George'?"
Helen took a breath as though she lifted something heavy.
"Because he is my husband," she said clearly. She had never used the word before, and she enjoyed the pain it gave her.
There were no merciful shadows in the room: daylight poured in at the windows and revealed Helen standing with hands clasped before her and gazing with wide eyes at Miriam's pale face, her parted lips, her horrified amazement.
"George?" she asked huskily.
"Yes."
"But why?"
"Why does one marry?"