overhead some bird began to sing, in spite of the rain, a broken evening song.
“That little beggar sees it’s a hopeless case, so he reminds us of heaven. But if he’s going to cover us with yew-leaves, he’s set himself a job.”
Helena laughed again, and shivered. He put his arm round her, drawing her nearer his warmth. After this new and daring move neither spoke for a while.
“The rain continues,” he said.
“And will do,” she added, laughing.
“Quite content,” he said.
The bird overhead chirruped loudly again.
“ ‘Strew on us roses, roses,’ ” quoted Byrne, adding after a while, in wistful mockery: “ ‘And never a sprig of yew’—eh?”
Helena made a small sound of tenderness and comfort for him, and weariness for herself. She let herself sink a little closer against him.
“Shall it not be so—no yew?” he murmured.
He put his left hand, with which he had been breaking larch-twigs, on her chilled wrist. Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he held them up.
“I shall make marks on you,” he said.
“They will come off,” she replied.
“Yes, we come clean after everything. Time scrubs all sorts of scars off us.”
“Some scars don’t seem to go,” she smiled.
And she held out her other arm, which had been pressed warm against his side. There, just above the wrist, was the red sun-inflammation from last year. Byrne regarded it gravely.
“But it’s wearing off—even that,” he said wistfully.
Helena put her arms round him under his coat. She
