I heard his low laughter, that horrible laughter which would always be with me.

He had wheeled me close to the wall. What had happened to it? There was the hole as there had been on that other occasion; there was the hollow.

He had dragged me out of the wheelbarrow in which he had brought me from the cottage; I could hear his heavy breathing as he forced me into the hollow.

"Reuben ... !" I breathed. "No ... for God's sake, Reuben... "

"I feared 'ee'd be dead," he said. "Twouldn't have been right. I be powerful glad you be alive still."

I tried to speak, to plead with him. I tried to call. My bruised throat felt constricted and although I exerted all my will I could not produce a sound.

I was there ... standing there as I had stood that day. He was but a dark shadow and as though from far off I heard him laugh. I saw the brick in his hand and I knew what he was going to do.

As I fainted I thought suddenly; All that I have done has brought me to this, just as all that she did brought her to this same spot. We had trod a similar path, but I had not known it. I had thought I could make life go as I wanted it ... but so perhaps had she.

Through a haze of pain and doubt I heard a voice, a well-loved voice. "Good God!" it said. And then: "Kerensa, Kerensa!" I was lifted in a pair of arms, tenderly, compassionately. "My poor, poor Kerensa... ."

It was Kim who had come for me. Kim who had saved; Kim who was carrying me in his arms from the darkness of death into the Abbas.

I was ill for several weeks. They kept me at the Abbas and Mellyora was there to look after me.

It had been a terrible ordeal, far worse than at first I realized; each night I would wake in a sweat dreaming I was standing within the hollowed wall while devils feverishly worked to build me in.

Mellyora came over to nurse me, and was with me night and day.

One night I woke and sobbed in her arms.

"Mellyora," I said, "I deserved to die for I have sinned."

"Hush," she soothed. "You must not think such things."

"But I have ... as deeply as she did. More so. She broke her vows. I broke mine. I broke the vows of friendship, Mellyora."

"You have had bad dreams."

"Bad dreams of a bad life."

"You have had a terrible experience. There is no need to be afraid."

"Sometimes I think Reuben is in the room, that I shout and no one hears."

"They have taken him away to Bodmin. He has been ill for a long time. Gradually getting worse..."

"Since Hetty went?"

"Yes."

"How was it Kim was there to save mer""

"Because he had seen that the wall had been tampered with. He spoke to Reuben about it and Reuben said it had collapsed again. He said that he'd have it put right the next day. But Kim couldn't understand why it should have collapsed when it had been rebuilt not so long ago ... oh you remember when ... we were children."

"I remember well," I told her. "We were all there together... ."

"We all remember," Mellyora answered. "Then you didn't come home and I went to Kim ... naturally."

"Yes," I said gently, "naturally you went to Kim."

"I knew you'd gone to the cottage, so we went there first. It was unlocked and the door was wide open. Kim was frightened then. He ran on ... because Reuben had said something strange to him about Hetty ... and the idea must have come to him... ."

"He guessed what Reuben was going to do"

"He guessed something strange was happening and we might find out at the wall. Thank God, Kerensa."

"And Kim," I murmured.

Then I began to think of all I owned to him. Joe's life probably and Joe's present happiness; my life; my future happiness.

Kim, I thought, soon we shall be together and everything that has gone before v^ be forgotten. There will only be the future for us—for me and for you, my Kim.

I woke in the night, sobbing. I had had a bad dream. I was standing on the stairs with Mellyora and she was holding out the toy elephant to me.

I was saying: "It was this which killed her. You are free now, Mellyora ... free."

I awoke and saw Mellyora standing beside me, her fair hair in two plaits; thick and glistening, they looked like golden ropes.

"Mellyora," I said.

"It's all right. It was nothing but a bad dream."

"These dreams ... is there no escape from them?"

"They will pass when you remember that they are only dreams."

"But they are part of the past, Mellyora. Oh you don't know. I have been wicked, I'm afraid."

"Now, Kerensa, stop saying such things."

"Confession is good for the soul, they say. Mellyora I want to confess."

"To me?"

"It is you whom I have wronged."

"I shall give a sedative and you must try to sleep."

"I will sleep better with a light conscience. I must tell you, Mellyora. I must tell you about the day Judith died. It was not as everyone believed. I know how she died."

"You have had bad dreams, Kerensa."

"Yes, that is why I must tell you. You will not forgive me ... not deep in your heart although you will say you will. I kept silent when I should have spoken. I spoilt your life, Mellyora."

"What are you saying? You must not excite yourself. Come take this and try to sleep."

"Listen to me. Judith tripped. Do you remember Nelly ... the elephant, Carlyon's toy elephant?"

She looked alarmed. Clearly she thought I was wandering.

"Do you?" I persisted.

"But of course. It's still about somewhere."

"Judith tripped over it. The scar ..."

Her brow was furrowed.

"The tear," I went on. "You mended it. Judith's heel made that. It was lying on the stairs and she tripped over it. I hid the elephant first because I didn't want Carlyon blamed and then ... afterwards because I thought that if it were proved to have been an accident Justin would never have gone away; he would have married you; you would have had a son who would have had everything—everything that I wanted for Carlyon."

Silence in the room. Only the sound of the clock ticking on the mantelshelf. The dead silence of the Abbas by night. Somewhere in this house Kim was sleeping. Carlyon, too.

"Did you hear me, Mellyora?" I asked.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"And do you hate me ... for shaping your life ... for ruining your life?"

She was silent for a while and I thought: I have lost her. I have lost Mellyora. First Granny, now Mellyora. But what do I care? I have Carlyon. I have Kim.

"It is all so long ago," said Mellyora at length.

"But you might have married Justin. You might be mistress of the Abbas. You might have children. Oh, Mellyora, how you must hate me!"

"I could never hate you, Kerensa, besides ..."

"When you remember it all... when it comes back to you clearly ... when you remind yourself of all you have lost, you will hate me."

"No, Kerensa."

"Oh, you are so good ... too good. Sometimes I hate your goodness, Mellyora. It makes you so weak. I would admire you more if you blazed at me in anger."

"But I couldn't do that now. It was wrong of you. It was wicked of you. But it is over. And now I want to say thank you, Kerensa. For I am glad you did what you did."

"Glad ... glad to have lost the man you loved ... glad for a life of loneliness?"

"Perhaps I never loved Justin, Kerensa. Oh, I am not so meek as you believe me to be. If I had loved him, I should never have let him go. If he had loved me, he would never have gone. Justin loved the life of solitude. He is happy now as he never has been before. And so am I. It would have been a bitter mistake if we had married. You saved us from that, Kerensa. For the wrong motives, yes ... but you saved us. And I am glad to be saved. I am so happy now ... I could never have had happiness like this but for you. That's what you have to remember."

"You are trying to comfort me, Mellyora. You always did. I am not a baby to be soothed."

"I had not meant to tell you yet. I was waiting until you were better. Then we were going to celebrate. We are all getting excited about it. Carlyon is thinking up a big surprise. It's going to be a grand party, and we're only waiting for you to be better."

"To celebrate ... what?"

"This is the time to tell you ... to set your mind at rest. They won't mind that I've told you ... though we did plan to make an occasion of it."

"I don't understand."

"I knew as soon as he came back. And so did he. He knew it was the chief reason why he wanted to be back."

"Who?"

"Kim, of course. He has asked me to marry him. Oh, Kerensa, life is so wonderful. So it was you who saved me. You see why I can only be grateful. We're going to be married soon.

"You ... and Kim ... oh no. You and Kim!"

She laughed. "You have been grieving all this time, thinking of Justin. But the past is done with, Kerensa. What has gone before isn't important any more. It's what lies ahead. Don't you see?"

Yes, I did see. I saw my dreams in ruins. I saw that I had learned nothing from the past.

I looked into a future as dark as the hollows between the walls. I was walled in with my misery.

8

There are children at the Abbas now—Mellyora's and Kim's. The eldest —called Dick, after his father—is ten years old and so like Kim that when I see them together my bitterness is almost unendurable.

I live at the Dower House and every day or so I walk across the meadow, past the ring of stones to the house. All sign of the mine has now been removed. Kim says that the St. Larnstons needed to know it was there, but the Kimbers have no need of it because they will love the place and work for it so that it will always prosper while there are Kimbers at St. Larnston.