"Aren't they? I thought they might be. I don't know much about them,"

said Peter, rubbing his chin. "Rough as a porcupine, aren't I? You must have thought me a savage when you found me stuck upside-down in that tree like a sloth. What DID you think?"

She looked at him, longing to tell him what she had thought. She longed to tell him of the boy she had expected to find in the tree. She longed to tell him how the finding had shocked her by bringing home to her her loss--not of the boy, but of something in that moment still more precious to her. Because (she longed to tell him) she had so swiftly rediscovered the lost boy, not in his face but in his glance, not in his words but in the tones of his voice.

But when she looked at him and saw him leaning on his elbow waiting for her answer with his half-shut lids and the half-smile on his lips, she answered only, "I was thinking how to get you back to the bank."

"Was that it? Well, you managed it. I've never thanked you, have I?"

"Don't!" said Helen with a quick breath, and looked out of the window.

He waited for a few moments and then said, "I'm a bad hand at thanking.

I can't help being a savage, you know. I'm not fit for women's company.

I don't look so rough when I'm trimmed."

"I don't want to be thanked," said Helen controlling her voice; and added with a faint smile, "No one looks his best when he's ill."

"Wait till I'm well," grinned Peter, "and see if I'm not fit to walk you out o' Sundays." He lay back on his pillow and whistled a s.n.a.t.c.h of tune. Her heart almost stopped beating, because it was the tune he had whistled at the door twenty years ago. For a moment she thought she could speak to him as she wished. But desire choked her power to choose her words; so many rushed through her brain that she had to pause, seeking which of them to utter; and that long pause, in which she really seemed to have uttered them all aloud, checked the impulse. But surely he had heard her? No; for she had not spoken yet. And before she could make the effort he had stopped whistling, and when she looked at him to speak, he was fumbling restlessly about his pillow.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something I had--where's my clothes?"

She brought them to him, and he searched them till he had found among them a small metal box which he thrust under the pillow; and then he lay back, as though too tired to notice her. So her impulse died in her, unacted on.

And during the next four days it was always so. A dozen times in their talks she tried to come near him, and could not. Was it because he would not let her? or because the thing she wished to find in him was not really there? Sometimes by his manner only, and sometimes by his words, he baffled her when she attempted to approach him--and the attempt had been so painful to conceive, and its still-birth was such agony to her. He would talk frequently of the time when he would be making tracks again.

"Where to?" asked Helen.

"I leave it to chance. I always have. I've never made plans. Or very seldom. And I'm not often twice in the same place. You look tired. I'm sorry to be a bother to you. But it'll be for the last time, most likely. Go and lie down."

"I don't want to," said Helen under her breath. And in her thoughts she was crying, "The last time? Then it must be soon, soon! I'll make you listen to me now!"

"I want to sleep," said Peter.

She left the room. Tears of helplessness and misery filled her eyes.

She was almost angry with him, but more angry with herself; but her self-anger was mixed with shame. She was ashamed that he made her feel so much, while he felt nothing. Did he feel nothing?

"It's my stupidity that keeps us apart," she whispered. "I will break through it!" As quickly as she had left him she returned, and stood by the bed. He was lying with his hand pressed over his eyes. When he was conscious of her being there, his hand fell, and his keen eyes shot into hers. His brows contracted.

"You nuisance," he muttered, and hid his eyes again. She turned and left him. When she got outside the door she leaned against it and shook from head to foot. She hovered on the brink of her delusions and felt as though she would soon crash into a precipice. She longed for him to go before she fell. Yes, she began to long for the time when he should go, and end this pain, and leave her to the old strange life that had been so sweet. His living presence killed it.

After that third day she had had no more fears for his safety, and he was strong and rallied quickly. The gull too was saved. He saved it. It had drooped and sickened with her. She did not know what to do with it.

On the fourth day as he was so much better, she brought it to him. He reset its wing and kept it by him, making it his patient and his playfellow. It thrived at once and grew tame to his hand. He fondled and talked to it like a lover. She would watch him silently with her smoldering eyes as he fed and caressed the bird, and jabbered to it in sc.r.a.ps of a dozen foreign tongues. His tenderness smote her heart.

"You're not very fond of birds," he said to her once, when she had been sitting in one of her silences while he played with his pet.

The words, question or statement, filled her with anger. She would not trust herself to protest or deny. "I don't know much about them," she said.

"That's a pity," said Peter coolly. "The more you know em the more you have to love em. Yet you could love them for all sorts of things without knowing them, I'd have thought."

She said nothing.

"For their beauty, now. That's worth loving. Look at this one--you're a beauty all right, aren't you, my pretty? Not many girls to match you."

He paused, and ran his finger down the bird's throat and breast.

"Perhaps you don't think she's beautiful," he said to Helen.

"Yes, she's beautiful," said Helen, with a difficulty that sounded like reluctance.

"Ah, you don't think so. You ought to see her flying. You shall some day. When her hurt's mended she'll fly--I'll let her go."

"Perhaps she won't go," said Helen.

"Oh, yes, she will. How can she stop in a place like this? This is no air for her--she must fly in her own."

"You'll be sorry to see her go," said Helen.

"To see her free? No, not a bit. I want her to fly. Why should I keep her? I'd not let her keep me. I'd hate her for it. Why should I make her hate me?"

"Perhaps she wouldn't," said Helen, in a low voice.

"Oh, I expect she would. Ungrateful little beggar. I've saved her life, and she ought to know she belongs to me. So she might stay out of grat.i.tude. But she'd come to hate me for it, all the same. Not at first; after a bit. Because we change. Bound to, aren't we?"

"Perhaps."

"I know I do. We can none of us stay what we were. You haven't either."

"You haven't much to go by," said Helen.

"Seven minutes at the door, wasn't it? This time it's been seven days."

"Yes."

"It's a long time for me," said Peter.

"It's not much out of a lifetime."

"No. But suppose it were more than seven days?"

Helen looked at him and said slowly, "It will be, won't it? You won't be able to go to-morrow."

"No," said Peter, "not to-morrow, or next day perhaps. Perhaps I won't be able to go for the rest of my life."

This time Helen looked at him and said nothing.

Peter stroked his bird and whistled his tune and stopped abruptly and said, "Will you marry me, Helen?"

"I'd rather die," said Helen.

And she got up and went out of the room.