Mother and daughter came toiling up the hill above the marsh-land, swinging a basket of linen between them. The daughter was but a little one—just eleven years old—but beginning to be fit to help mother a bit: and the mother herself was scarcely past thirty, though she had three younger than Sue to care for.

They came up fast, for there was a mass of purple cloud behind the town on the distant hill, and a still darker bank of it across the horizon out to sea, and the rain might come down again at any moment. It had been a bad season for laundresses, and the drying of clothes a very difficult job; there was another lot to get home to-night before going to bed if it could be managed: more than enough to do, yet not enough with it all to keep the six mouths filled, and Mrs. Wood was on her way to try for another family’s work.

“You get along ’ome with this, Sue,” she said to her child; “you can manage the basket alone now you be on the top, can’t ye? There be cold bacon in the cupboard for dinner. You lay it out ready: I’ve got to step in and see post-mistress. She ’ave let ’er ’ouse on the ’ill to a family from London. They say there be lots o’ children, and it’d be a good job for us if I could get ’er to speak for me.”

“I ’ope post-mistress won’t be nasty then,” said the child with wisdom that sat sadly on her chubby face and seemed to have no place in the innocent, brown eyes. “She caught father drunk last night when you guv ’im that postal order to git cashed, and she went on at ’im h’awful.”

The mother’s brow clouded. She seemed to find nothing strange in the child’s remark; it was evident that she was wont to make this little eldest daughter the confidante of her troubles—but her brow clouded with anger.

“Did she though?” cried she defiantly, her thin, delicately pretty face lighting up with a flame that gave it a momentary brilliancy of colouring. “And ’ose fault was it as father was drunk? It weren’t my earnin’s nor his’n neither as ’e spent on it, for ’e didn’t cash the paper till arter! It be them nasty do-nothin’s at the road-corners as tempts ’im and treats ’im, for the fun of ’earin’ ’im go on a bit merry, that’s what it be—and it be a burnin’ shame, it be!”

They had reached the top of the hill, and Mrs. Wood set the basket down on the flags just outside the doctor’s surgery. There were loiterers even now at the corner of the churchyard that was the centre of the village square, and she had raised her voice with the last words, and they had smiled.

She took the corner of her apron and wiped her mouth, that was quivering a little.

“There, never you mind, you go ’long ’ome, dear,” said she softly, as though she were half-ashamed. “It ain’t ’cos father ’as ’is drop as Miss ’Earn’s so set agin me, noways.”

“Why be it then, mother?” asked the little maid with natural curiosity. “She do seem to owe you some grudge, she do. And folks all callin’ of ’er so pious and Christian-like.”

“Never you mind,” repeated the mother again. “Them pious folk is allers the ones to be down on their neighbours.” And she stooped and lifted the basket to the child’s head. “Can ye manage it?” said she, “or shall I come to the corner with ye?”

“No, it be all right,” declared Sue, though she staggered a minute at first. And lifting a tiny arm to the load to steady it, she set off down the street towards where the cottages stood so close to the hill’s edge that one might have jumped off straight into the waste of blue mist below that was marsh-land and river unrolling to the sea.

Mrs. Wood watched her a minute to see that she was safe, and then she turned her back on the loiterers and went on towards the post-office.

One lad called out a greeting to her and asked who her mate was with, but she paid no heed though the others laughed. She shook her spare shoulders as she walked with a way that she had, and drew her spare little black jacket around her and held her little head, that had once been so pretty, well up, so that the thin nose was tilted, sniffing the cool air, and any one who knew her could have told that the next person she met would “catch it.”

The loiterers knew it, and laughed as they saw who the next person would be.

For it was her own man who came lounging across the churchyard. He was a great, hulking fellow who looked as though he could have taken the frail little body in one great hand and crushed it to death, yet the woman showed no fear of him. She just stood where she was and waited for him to reach the gate and come through to her, and though the laughter went on at the corner by which he must pass, and she knew very well what the joke was, she was nowise daunted nor even seemed to notice it.

And as the man came closer one could see that on the top of that great body there was a handsome, gipsy face with coal-black beard and hair curling crisply, and dark eyes that might have flashed if they would, but that were soft and velvety as those of his own little daughter, while the mouth smiled almost tremulously, showing a row of even, white teeth.

“Why ain’t ye at work?” said the wife as the Adonis came up.

“’Ere, Jerry, I wants a word with ye,” called one of the young fellows on the wall.

“You budge if you dare,” said the little woman, setting her lips together.

“Don’t ye stop to be bullied, man,” laughed another one yonder. “What be the good of a good time if ye pay for it next day this way?”

But the Adonis only smiled a charming smile, looking from one to the other.

“Why ain’t ye at work?” repeated his wife.

“It be close upon dinner-time,” answered the man good-humouredly. “It weren’t worth while goin’ up there for less nor ’arf a hour.”

“What—ye don’t mean to tell me ye ’aven’t been to work at all?” screamed the little woman. “’Close upon,’ indeed! ’Aven’t ye got turned off jobs times untold ’cos o’ ‘close upon’? It be allers ‘close upon’ dinner-time or tea-time or leavin’ off time wi’ you! If Major Dennis turns ye off again, ’e won’t take ye on no more, and you know that well enough!”

“I wouldn’t stand it, I wouldn’t,” laughed the demon at the corner.

Jerry looked doubtfully from one to the other, still smiling; then something that was almost a flash of anger came from the soft, dark eyes.

“And I be dashed if I do,” said he, taking off his cap and digging his great fingers into the crisp, black curls! “A man must ’ave ’is bit o’ leisure, damn it all! I’ve worked for the Major nigh upon five years....”

There was a roar of laughter at this, and Jerry himself smiled.

“Well, I mean countin’ the off-times,” he added, without the slightest touch of ill-humour.

“The times ’e ’ave turned ye off, ye mean, and took ye on again, eh?” put in the chorus.

“And I be darned if I be goin’ to work for ’im no more if I can’t do it my own way,” concluded the giant, without regarding the interruption otherwise than by his pleasant smile. “I ain’t got the ’ealth to keep it up mornin’, noon and night without so much as a breathing....”

“Or a whettin’ o’ yer whistle,” slipped in the other. “Yer back’s too long to stand the stoopin’, I’ll be bound!”

Jerry turned his smile into a laugh in polite recognition of the witticism, before he added his ultimatum. “And if ’e bain’t a-goin’ to be reasonable,” declared he, “well, I shall just chuck it! I’ve ’eard say there be a gardener wanted up at the ’Ill, and I shall apply for the sitivation.”

Jerry drew himself up to all his splendid height and looked round on his audience with dignity. But his wife spoiled the whole thing.

“Ye fool,” snarled she under her breath as this last proposition met with its well-deserved appreciation from the loungers; “can’t ye see as they be all a-laughin’ at ye? ’Ow are ye goin’ for to get a sitivation without no character? Come ’long ’ome do, for mercy’s sake, and ’ave yer dinner and get to work.”

She clutched at his arm to lead him away as she was sometimes able to do when he was in a good mood; for Jerry always found it easier to please anybody than to say them “nay,” and often would patiently do even his wife’s bidding—provided he was not in his cups—when he could, alas! descend even to the boot or the kitchen-poker at his need. But to-day, unluckily his wife was demanding submission when others were by to see, and these others the very ones over whom his wit had gained a supremacy of its own the night before in the hour of carouse. What man could brook this—least of all what man who had his position for popularity to maintain?

He drew his arm away.

“I tell ye the Major ’ll ’ave to be’ave very different to me afore I work for ’im agin,” reiterated he, and as the woman still nudged him: “You go and mind the children, Lucy,” he added loftily, “and leave me ’lone. Women-folk ain’t supposed to understand these ’ere things.”

His supporters cheered him loudly at this, and he moved across towards them, but Lucy Wood was not easily to be set aside. She knew that her influence with him was for the moment in abeyance, but she turned to her tormentors.

“Ain’t ye ashamed o’ yerselves, a pack o’ idle young vagabonds, to sit there and make fun of a man as ’d ha’ been a good ’un enough if it weren’t for you and your likes?” cried she passionately. “If you ’aven’t got no one to work for—though Lord knows there’s mothers dependin’ on ye if there ain’t wives and childer—can’t ye ’ave the grace to leave them alone as ’as?”

The woman’s voice was breaking, if not her spirit, and she had to pause for breath. A little bantam cock of a man, older than the rest, took his pipe from his mouth and snarled out an ugly oath at her.

Jerry, who wore a vexed look on his handsome face, murmured deprecatingly, “Easy, easy, mate!” but the man only retorted: “Well, send ’er ’ome and don’t be rid over by yer women-folk so meeklike, man,” and the giant, anxious to keep his good footing with his comrades, bid his wife once more be gone.

“You come ’ome to yer dinner and leave talkin’ stuff as ye can’t act up to and I’ll let ye be,” was all she said, and added, catching a nasty look in the little man’s face, and seeing the ill effect it was having on her own man: “Oh, I know what ye be up to, Casey, and it won’t be the first time ye’ve played me a bad turn this way, if it be the last. But I don’t care for your bad words, not I! It be your sort as be the curse o’ my man, and I’ll save ’im from ye if I can.”

It was an ill-judged remark, and she paid dearly for it.

Away from his mates Jerry might have been docile, but supported by them he was not going to be wife-ridden.

“You go ’ome and I’ll come when I please,” repeated he doggedly.

Lucy Wood knew the mood and knew that it was idle to fight it.

“Dinner-time’s dinner-time to-day,” was all she said. “Sue and me ’as got a sight a linen to get done, and I shall clear away sharp.”

“There’s a wife for ye,” said Casey facetiously. “Don’t let’s you and me get spliced, lads! That be ’ow the women study a man!”

“I pity the one as ’ll ’ave to study you, Jim Casey!” retorted Lucy. “And may be if she’ve got to earn the money as well as feed the childer, she won’t get time to study no one much.”

She turned as she spoke, and drew her jacket together with her old pettish movement.

“That be a nasty one!” laughed Casey. “But if I was ‘cheeked’ like that, I be blowed if I’d give a woman what I earned! No, I’d keep it for myself, I would.”

Lucy turned quickly. Up till now she had known well enough he would come home sooner or later, since he had no money wherewith to buy victuals. But now a sudden uneasiness seized her.

“’E ain’t got any now, any ways,” said she, looking at him. “’E don’t get ’is wage till to-night.”

Jerry quailed beneath her gaze. To do him justice, he had forgotten till this very moment that he had money in his pocket: it was such a very rare occurrence. His master, owing to a sudden departure, had paid him his due the evening before; he had faithfully promised to take it straight to his wife, but the tempters had come along, and a good part of it had already gone in the carouse of the night, which she supposed he had owed to his friends.

“’Old on, Jerry; stick to it, man!” came from the group.

“Ye’ve never got your wage by now,” asked Lucy almost incredulously.

He did not answer, and her face went white; she had counted on this rare week’s money of his for so many little debts.

He lowered his eyes—he was genuinely sorry. The sight of her frail little body quivering with anxiety, of her frail little face going paler because of his selfish cruelty, reminded him vaguely of the day when she had been near to leaving him in consequence of what the doctor had called “grinding herself to death for a good-for-nothing husband.” He wondered if she was going to faint again now, as she had done then, when he had thought she was dead, and his heart turned sick.

But she did not faint—his silence had told her the truth, and she pulled herself together, as she always did in an emergency. She said nothing; she knew there was nothing more to be said—then; she just left him and went on up the road. But when she had gone a little way she turned half round and waited, and her man came up a few steps towards her.

“I’ll leave the cold bacon on the table ready for you,” said she, quite gently. “I may ’ave to go out with the linen.”

“Keep it up, old man,” came Casey’s rasping tones up the path, followed by a brutal laugh.

Jerry faced about towards him once more, and Lucy disappeared round the corner. She had no heart for the post-mistress then, and indeed she half guessed that that inquisitive woman had witnessed the scene on the green through the window-frame behind which she dispensed postal conveniences and morality to the village; it was bad enough to face Miss Hearn when she had no special reason to crow over one—it was impossible when she had.

Lucy was quite right. Miss Hearn had seen and heard everything, and was discussing it now with the doctor’s housekeeper, who had come in to send a postal order to her son.

“Poor soul!” the latter was saying in kindly commiserating tones, “I feel right down sorry for ’er, I do! A-slavin’ and a-killin’ of ’erself workin’ for that good-for-nothin’ lazy-bones! And a confinement thrown in most Christmas-times. Why, there’s been one every year since they was wed, to my certain knowledge—and there couldn’t be no more.”

“Since they was what?” repeated Miss Hearn, pursing her lips and wagging her head till the long, sleek ringlets on either side of her round, furrowed face shook sorrowfully.

“Well, they was wed, though it might ha’ been sooner,” said the other, blushing a little, but smiling a little too; “there was only one of ’em born out o’ wedlock after all.”

“Ain’t one enough?” retorted the post-office lady distantly. “I scarce call it a wedding myself—when it ain’t at the right time. If that sort o’ thing weren’t made light of among ye, it wouldn’t ’appen. It ought not to be tolerated. It’s a disgrace to the parish.”

“Well, Lucy was looked askance at at first,” answered the other, who, as the doctor’s right hand for many a year, considered herself competent to argue a question even with the post-office mistress. “I allers passed her by on the other side o’ the road myself. But ye must allow she did make ’im marry ’er, and virtue ’ave got to be rewarded, ’aven’t it? Else it ain’t no good a-practisin’ of it.”

“Virtue!” sniffed Miss Hearn. “A tardy reparation don’t wipe out sin.”

“Oh, I ain’t a-goin’ to defend sin,” said the elder woman hastily. “And o’ course Lucy ’adn’t no business to go runnin’ along dark lanes wi’ the man on moonlight nights! But there, the gal did what she could to make up—for you won’t go for to deny it wanted a bit o’ pluck to tie ’erself up to ’im! Why, it’s my belief, ’e beat ’er when ’e was drunk afore they was so much as wed—not to say nothink o’ goin’s on with them gals at the ’Arbour.”

“I wonder at yer bringin’ yer mouth to speak o’ such things,” said the post-mistress severely. “And if you ask me, I’d ’ave said pitch was best let alone anyways.”

But the humbler Chapel-goer was not daunted.

“Well, I never!” ejaculated she. “And you, a Church-woman! You’d never ’ave ’ad ’er not give Sue a name?”

“For one she give a name to, she’s brought three into the world to own a drunken sot and evil-liver for a father!” sneered Miss Hearn. “’Tis writ the sins o’ the fathers shall be visited on the children. No, no, you take my word for it,” added the lady dictatorially, “the sinful passions o’ man—not to say woman—is the root o’ the whole o’ that there business.”

“I never thought o’ that,” declared the housekeeper, a trifle shaken in her opinion. “Not but what I can’t deny she were dead gone on ’im. But, there, anyways she do ’ave a life on it,” she added irrelevantly; “and I do think ye might give ’er that job o’ work if ye could manage it, ma’am.”

Miss Hearn pursed her lips and moved away to fetch the order which both women had forgotten in the eagerness of their gossip.

This request put her back on the pedestal of her dignity.

“I think o’ the example, ma’am,” she whispered, her eyelids positively quivering with righteousness as she proceeded to her work. “I’ve done more for Mrs. Wood than I should ha’ done a’ready. Many’s the time I’ve overlooked it when she were late with my rent. And yet she earns as good as most, and I didn’t ought to. We must think o’ the deservin’ fust.”

“Well, she ’ave done the best she could for ’er childer ye must allow,” argued the other. “They’s the cleanest and best be’aved children in the village—everybody says so—and allers at school, ’cept Sue, as stays to ’elp ’er mother now. Nobody can’t say but what Lucy Wood ’aven’t toiled for ’em all, and ’alf killed ’erself too! The master told me if ever she was to ’ave another turn same as that she ’ad last winter, she couldn’t get over it no-ways.”

“Folk must lie as they’ve made their beds,” repeated Miss Hearn, pitilessly. “If she ’ad ha’ kep’ ’erself to ’erself she wouldn’t ha’ ’ad no sich turns at all.”

“Well, ye can’t expect girls to bide single,” began the other; but the post-mistress handed her postal order with: “Six and sixpence, ma’am, please,” in such a business-like voice that the torrent of her speech was checked.

She took out the money sadly. She had seen trouble enough in the doctor’s house to have a kindly corner in her heart, disciplinarian though she professed herself.

“Nobody wouldn’t deny but what poor Lucy would ha’ done better if she ’adn’t never ha’ seen that Jerry,” she began again; “and if the Lord was to be minded to take ’im, o’ course she could do much better for ’erself and the childer....”

“That may be very like,” interrupted the tyrant sternly. “Nevertheless, ye’ll please not to take the Lord’s name in vain on my premises! We poor sinners ain’t got nothin’ to do wi’ the ways o’ Providence.”

“No offence,” said the visitor cheerily. “I’m sure I don’t want to presume to interfere with Them above; and p’r’aps Lucy mightn’t be pleased, though it would make things so much easier for ’er. She do seem sot on ’im still, don’t she? I often wonder,” she added confidentially, “if she guesses as ’e ain’t true to ’er.”

Miss Hearn assumed a more shocked expression than ever.

“When a woman ’ave so far forgot ’erself there’s no length she won’t go to!” said she sententiously. “She ain’t never ’ad no proper pride—and she won’t get it now. Always a-defendin’ and a-upholdin’ o’ ’im! It’s terrible to witness!”

“Yes, it’s my belief she loves ’im still,” said the doctor’s housekeeper reflectively.

And then the postman came in with the mail-bag, and the post-mistress was forced to make up for lost time, and look sharp stamping the letters. The visitor hastened to depart.

If she could have seen the object of her good-natured consideration a few hours later she would certainly have been inclined to endorse her own opinion that Lucy loved him still.

All the day long she had been watching for him, and no cries of children nor weary attention to work, nor quaint, practical comfort from her wise little first-born, could dull her ear to every footstep along the stony road outside, or steel her heart against the silent misery that was slowly creeping around and upon it.

Father had not been home either to dinner or to tea. She had sent Sue to the Major’s, but he had not been there all day. She had even been herself to the “Public” on the village green to ferret out news of him, but no one had met him since they had seen them together that morning on the churchyard corner, and she began to feel pretty sure now that he had gone on the spree to some more distant “diggings,” as he was wont to do at times when he was thoroughly in with his bad companions and wanted to be out of reach of her “worritin’.”

“I ’spect ’e be down at the Arbour,” moaned she to the little daughter who sat laboriously darning a pair of stockings at her side, while she herself passed the iron up and down over the fine damask table-linen belonging to her best customers up at the “house.” And her gaze crept out of the window across the marsh-land that swept to the sea from the base of the cliff, on whose crest their cottage stood. She could not see “the Harbour,” as the villagers called it, for it was three miles away where the river oozed through muddy banks to the sea, but she could see a bit of the long white road upon which he would come when he started homewards.

“There were a brig due to-night,” she added, “and father do like to be by when there be a brig due—the fellers keep so merry.”

She was silent a moment, taking up her goffering-tongs to goffer a pillow-case frill and holding them to her cheek to test the heat.

“There, I do wish I ’adn’t been such a silly as to let out to Jim Casey this morning!” she went on presently. “I might ha’ knowed ’e’d pay me out somehow. ’E allers does.”

“I ’ate Jim Casey,” said the child, lifting serious brown eyes to her mother’s face, for all the world like her father’s.

“And the Lord knows I do,” declared the mother peevishly. “It be all ’is fault as father be as ’e be. ’E ’ave done more ’arm than the Lord knows in this world, ’ave Casey.”

The child was silent. She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t meant to understand, and she didn’t want to. She was used to having her mother run on to her in an endless, peevish moan when things were “contrairy,” and she liked to sit and listen and feel important without knowing why.

“I’d like to pay Casey out some day, and no mistake,” said the mother vindictively.

And the little girl echoed the sentiment, looking up again with her frank eyes in which vindictiveness had not yet learned to dwell. “Do, mother,” she said, being sure of one thing only, and that was that she did not like Jim Casey, because he somehow worked her father ill.

The mother’s face did not relax; she went on ironing desperately, slapping the iron on to the linen and dropping it heavily on to the stand again. But presently she looked up; she was folding the last table-napkin, and she laid it on the pile. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Father ’ll be ’ome soon, I ’spect,” said Sue gently, watching her.

“The Lord knows,” sighed the mother, and if the child had had more worldly wisdom she would have guessed that a fresh sting had crept into her misery; “there be no tellin’! But you ’aven’t got no need to worrit. You go and bring the children in from their play, and get ’em washed, and the supper spread, there’s a good child. I ’ope they ’aven’t strayed far.”

She put up the back of her hand and dried her eyes as she stepped to the door whence a flight of brick stairs led to the road along the cliff’s edge.

All day long storm-clouds had been circling round the distant sister town, and sweeping up across the marsh from the sea, piling themselves together thick and dark, and emptying their heaviness upon the wide, sad land. But, with the westering sun, they had lightened a bit, and there were holes in them that let the blue through in patches, and, above the ramparts of purple downs that enclosed the land that had once been water, they had parted now, leaving a long red line between their own murkiness and the sombre hue of the hills below: in one place the red was of blood, and the black arms of the windmill on the down’s crest made a cross upon it as of a Calvary.

Mrs. Wood did not notice the sunset, but she sighed as she looked out into the waste below, where, slowly and steadily, thick mists were rising from the dykes, or stealthily creeping across the marsh-land.

“My, it ’ave rained a lot,” said she, “the river be big. And I shouldn’t be surprised if we ’ad a nasty sea-fog to-night too.”

“Well,” said the child smiling with quick intention, “father knows ’is way ’cross the marsh, well enough.”

“Oh, I don’t s’pose ’e be likely to lose ’is way at this time o’ day, drunk or sober,” allowed the mother, with another sigh. “That ain’t all.”

And then she shaded her eyes and made out two dark and two fair-haired curly heads in the group of children playing in the road, and called out to them to come in to bed. She caught the last, the youngest, who was a boy, in her arms as he came up the steps and hugged him, and laughed for the first time that day as he kicked and struggled to get free.

“They’re in a rare mess, Sue,” she called out to the little elder sister. “You’d best give ’em their supper first, while I step up wi’ the linen. I won’t be long, but I must look in at the Post-office ’bout that there job or I’ll be too late. Leave washin’ o’ Johnnie till I come in; ’e’ll be too much for you.”

She passed back into the dwelling-room, taking off her apron and rolling down her sleeves as she went.

“The shirts can wait till the mornin’,” she added. “They want some airin’ yet.”

“I ’ope ye’ll get the work at the new ’ouse, mother,” said Sue cheerily as her mother went down the road; and she set the little brothers and sisters around sitting on the doorstep and gave them their milk and dry bread for supper.

But the luck was not in Mrs. Wood’s way that day; the job was gone before she got to the Post-office. Miss Hearn assured her curtly that it had been gone before she knew of her wanting it; it had gone to Widow Collins.

“I should ha’ thought ye might ha’ guessed I should want it fast enough, ma’am,” said poor Lucy humbly. “Widow Collins ain’t got no mouths to feed now ’er son’s provided for, and I don’t never ’ave work enough, wi’ all I can get to feed them as counts upon me.”

“Well, I’m sorry for ye,” said the post-mistress, though her tone belied her words, “but I’m bound to speak fair and honest to strangers accordin’ to what I’m asked, ye know. And folk will put awkward questions sometimes.”

Mrs. Wood flushed hot.

“’Tain’t fair, then,” said she, her voice trembling, but whether she alluded to the question that had been put, or to the answer that had been given, she did not specify. “If I do my work proper, and up to time, I don’t think nothink else ain’t nobody’s business.”

“That’s as may be,” retorted the superior, pursing her lips, and Lucy Wood went home.

She had heard no word of her husband—nothing but that Jim Casey had gone to the sea-port, and thither she was forced to suppose Jerry had gone too.

She washed her boy and put him to bed and bade Sue turn in too, and when she had damped the linen ready for the morrow’s final ironing, she put a light in the window, in case Jerry should come by the top way, and closing the front door softly, slunk shyly down to the wall at the end of the road to watch for that home-coming that she longed for and yet dreaded.

Many a time had she thus watched and waited before, but somehow to-night there was on her a deeper and more incomprehensible fear than she had ever known.

A horrible and sinister sense of mystery seemed to hang over everything: the moon was struggling with clouds that continually overswept and swamped her, and even when she looked forth it was with no mild radiance, but as though coldly trying to pierce some cruel secret; white and dense the sea-fog overspread the marsh like a blanket, swaying even up to the village on the cliff and floating softly down its streets and around its old church in the big square graveyard. One could scarcely see a yard in front of one, and two men who came smartly up the hill and round the corner did not see Lucy as she hung over the wall peering down the road.

“Pore Mrs. Wood, she’ll ’ave a job wi’ ’im to-night, she will!” said one with a laugh. “I often wonders whether she guesses the worst on ’im and just keeps dark on it for ’er pride’s sake.”

“Ye never can tell wi’ folk,” said the other sagely. “The gals from the ’Arbour don’t often come up this way, and I don’t s’pose no one’d go for to tell ’er.”

“Lord love ye, ye can’t never tell what nasty turn one woman’d do another,” declared Wilson. “Though I dare say she’d sooner put up wi’ it all than be rid on ’im, if the truth was known. It be past crediting what some women’ll look over in a man as they love.”

He started, for he felt a touch on his arm in the mist, and looking round recognized Lucy.

“I was thinkin’ p’r’aps ye might ha’ seen my ’usband down at the ’Arbour, Mr. Wilson,” said she in a thin, panting voice, that told of inner anguish bravely concealed. “’E ain’t come ’ome yet, and it be a nasty aitchy night.”

The man turned away his eyes from her miserable, eager face and looked at his comrade.

“Oh, don’t ye worrit, Mrs. Wood,” said the latter after a minute, during which the two looked blankly at one another. “Jerry be all right. We did see ’im down yonder, but ’e be wi’ a lot of ’em, and they’ll bring ’im ’ome, you can make sure.”

Bring him home! The words had an ominous sound, and she did not dare ask more.

She looked wistfully down the hill—or down as much of it as one could see in the damp, creeping atmosphere; the long, weary road across the lonely plain, with the sad swish of the waves coming nearer the further one went, till one reached the place where only white stones by the dyke’s side marked the way across the marsh to the harbour—it was all vividly present to her mind’s eye, and she knew it was no safe spot for a drunken man to cross in a thick fog.

“’E might want to leave and come ’ome afore the others was ready,” she said in the same thin, high voice. “I’ve ’alf a mind to go ’long the road to meet ’im.”

“Lord love ye, Mrs. Wood, ye mustn’t do no such thing,” said the man whom she had called Wilson, authoritatively. “The mist be as thick as mush on the marsh, and it wouldn’t be safe. Your man be all right. The boys wouldn’t never leave ’im—I know.”

She sighed; the assertion made it plainer than ever to her in what condition they had last seen him. She drew the old shawl that she had caught up in her haste tightly round her elbows and shivered.

“You go ’ome to the childer,” said the man kindly. “They be little uns; they needs ye most, ye know.”

“Thank ye,” retorted she sharply, “I knows best for myself where’s I be most needed. The childer’s in bed and asleep these hours gone.”

And she turned back to her old place by the wall, leaning on it and gazing down into the marsh.

The men walked on, and were gone in the mist.

It was the last mortification that could be laid on her—that folk should know—what she had known for long. But she was too actually sodden with misery to care as she would have cared a year or two ago. For she knew it—oh, yes, she knew it all! But she had never let any one guess that she knew it, least of all him. Perhaps it was because of her pride, as the man had surmised; perhaps it was because she had a vague hope that by silence and patience she would best strengthen the thread that still held him to her. She was only a simple woman, but she understood him pretty well, and she knew that the thread was there; she knew that it was weakness that led him away from her—weakness fortified by evil counsel and evil comradeship. And in the darkness she clenched her poor horny little hand and prayed that she might be even with Casey some day.

And meanwhile she waited, shivering in the fog, and her heart went out in passionate longing to the man who was faithless to her, who neglected her, who squandered her earnings, and was slowly bringing her to the grave. Wilson had said: “It’s past crediting what some women’ll look over in the man they love!”

But the minutes flew fast and grew into a long hour, and there was no sign of Jerry, and at last the wife had to remember the mother and go home to the babes.

Little Sue stirred.

“Be that father?” asked she drowsily.

“No, dear, not yet. You go to sleep,” said the mother,

“But ye won’t fret, mother, will you?” said the child again.

“Oh, no, dear, I won’t fret,” promised the poor soul, though her voice would have given the lie to her words had the child not been dulled with healthy weariness.

The little one turned round in bed, and the mother sat herself by the window wrapping her shawl more closely around her.

But she did not keep her promise—she did fret. She sat and rocked herself to and fro, and thought of all she might have done which she had not done, and of all she had done that would have best been left undone.

Yes, she had worried him; she had been too sharp, too fretful. She had not been able to make life gay for him—there were always so many cares; and he hated cares and loved gaiety.

Only that very morning she had found fault with him, and been cross to him before strangers; any man would hate that, and he hated it more than most. Why had she been so foolish? No wonder he had gone to the Harbour and to “them ’orrid girls.” It was her own fault. But when he came home, she would not speak a word of reproach. He should just sleep it off and not a word said. And she would get credit somehow to get him nice dinners. If only it weren’t that nasty old Miss Hearn to whom the rent was due!

And so she sat and planned and waited, and the lamp burned low, but he did not come.

Sleep won on her after her hard day’s work and she dozed off, and as she dozed she thought she was in the steep lane again where her Jerry had courted her first, and she felt the scent of pines after a hot day sweet in her nostrils, and the breath of kisses sweeter still upon her lips, and the soft tenderness of the warm moonlight slowly persuading her happy senses.

And she awoke with a start.

There was moonlight without, but it was wan and chill, and the only scent was a scent of salt sea spray that was borne in upon the fog: but there was a sound of voices in the night.

In a moment her hand was on the latch, and she was out on the threshold above the brick steps.

A man and a woman were coming up them, but the man was not her husband. It was Mr. Wilson, whom she had seen earlier in the evening—whom she had overheard—wondering “if she knew.” A sudden wave of anger against him swept over her, the foam of the mortification that she had so long endured.

The blood went to her head.

“What d’ye want?” said she savagely, standing at the top of her steps as though to guard her threshold.

But even as she spoke the words, the wave had passed over her, leaving her cold and shivering. For Wilson was silent, and there was a look of pity on his plain face. She looked at the woman: it was the doctor’s old housekeeper.

“What do ye want?” she repeated, but there was less fierceness in the voice now: it was half plaintive, half peevish.

The woman came two steps further up, but still Lucy guarded her threshold.

“Hush!” she whispered hoarsely, “don’t wake the childer. If there be trouble, say so. It won’t be nothin’ new for ye to tell me my man be drunk. Ye be all on yer pleased enough to come and say so. And if the truth was known I dare say ye wouldn’t mind sayin’ as ’e’d been down with the bad girls at the ’Arbour as well,” added she recklessly. “You be all on yer glad enough to say every bit o’ ill ye can on us both. Oh, yes, I know ’ow you and Miss ’Earn lays yer ’eads together agin me,” cried she, working up her anger the better to drown her fear. “I s’pose ye think it do but serve me right if ’e should treat me bad seein’ as I made myself too cheap to ’im at first. Oh, yes, don’t mind me—say it out, do.”

She ended in a whimper, and the old woman looked helplessly back at the man who waited lower down.

“Whativer shall we do wi’ ’er?” she whispered.

Mr. Wilson moved up.

“Look ’ere,” said he firmly, “we ain’t come to say no such things as you fancy. We means kindly by ye—we wants to ’elp ye all we can. For there be trouble, missus, and ye got to brace up to meet it.”

“Yes,” repeated the old woman, “ye’ve got to brace yerself up and keep yerself quiet, my dear.”

Lucy drew her shawl very tightly about her, and came down to them, driving them, as it were, before her.

“I don’t want no noise ’ere,” she said surlily. “Where be ’e?”

“’E be at the doctor’s,” said Wilson.

“Yes, ’e be at the master’s,” repeated the woman—“there’ve been a bit of a h’accident....”

Lucy pushed past her, and hurried round the corner and up the hill; the two had hard work to keep up with her.

“Casey be in it,” she muttered to herself. “Casey done it, I know. I’d like to be even wi’ Casey!” Then turning, she said fiercely, “Where be ’e?”

“Who?” asked Wilson.

“Casey,” said she.

“’E be ... ’e be took up,” answered the man.

Her face positively shone.

“What, took by the perlice?” she cried, clutching his arm. “Will ’e go to prison?”

“Oh, yes, ’e’ll go to prison,” said the man.

“The Lord be praised!” she said, stopping dead.

The old woman, who had been unable to keep the pace, caught them up.

“Look ’ere, ye must look sharp,” she panted, “if ye want to see ’im alive, my dear.”

“Alive? Who?” asked Lucy stupidly.

The old woman glanced at the man.

“I thought ye’d told ’er,” she said.

Lucy gazed at them.

“If ye mean as Casey ’ave killed my Jerry,” she began slowly, trembling as she spoke.

“’E ain’t dead, my dear, ’e ain’t dead yet,” faltered the old housekeeper.

Lucy began to run.

“Anyways it weren’t the blow Casey ’it ’im as done for ’im, Mrs. Wood,” panted Wilson, keeping up with her, “Nobody don’t love Casey, but ’tweren’t all ’is fault. There were a bit of a brawl—over a gal. Jerry was drunk, ’e ’it out. Then the perlice come. Somebody did say Casey split on Jerry, but if ’e did ’e be paid for it. For t’other boys ’elped Jerry off—’e was allers a favourite with ’em—and Casey, seein’ ’isself left-like, ’it out at the perlice. Nobody knows the rights o’t, but Casey be took up. So’d Jerry ha’ been if ’e ’adn’t come by that fall on the bridge. ’E was blind-drunk, and ’e missed ’is foot in the mist.”

“Casey done it,” was all Lucy said. “’Oo’s fault was it as ’e were drunk?” And she ran on.

Lights appeared faintly before her through the murky mist; they shone from the doctor’s house at the corner of the churchyard. The moon, piercing the clouds for a moment, threw a wan light on the square tower of the old church, on the summit of its massive buttresses, on the lopped pine-tree beyond; but it was too feeble to illumine the dank vapours that floated through the ghostly arches of the ruined transepts and rested, almost opaquely, on the tops of the time-worn tombstones in the graveyard.

There was a little knot of folk in the road hard by the surgery door; the same lads were there who had stood at the same corner in the morning, goading the wife to frenzy with their careless taunts, merrily “chaffing” the man whom they had now carried home to die: they stood aside, shamed and silent, to let the widow pass.

The doctor appeared in the doorway; he was a rough old man, and he had often roughly upbraided this woman for bringing children into the world at the risk of her life—children whom she was too frail to suckle and too poor to properly feed; but he took her kindly by the hand now.

“Come,” said he gently.

Something in his voice told her the truth: she looked at him wildly.

Yet she would not understand.

“Where be ’e? I must see ’im alone,” she said, always speaking in that hard, high voice. “We had words this mornin’ when we parted ... it were that Casey’s fault ... I must tell Jerry....”

“Hush!” said the doctor, solemnly, interrupting her. “You shall see him. But you must be brave—for the sake of your children.”

“Oh, never mind the children,” cried she, half-petulantly. “I want Jerry....”

“Hush!” said the doctor again. And he led her within into the surgery where those lights were burning that she had seen through the mist as she ran—cursing Casey in her heart.

There was a deep silence for a moment, and then those without heard a great cry.

“Poor soul!” murmured the old housekeeper, wiping her eyes. “He were a bad man to ’er, God knows! But—there—she loved ’im to the last, I do b’lieve.”

A year had passed away. It was autumn again, and Lucy Wood sat out on the threshold above her brick steps and gazed down into the marsh, and across it to the distant town and harbour. Her delicately fair face was wan and shrivelled, her eyes dull and sunken, her slender form now emaciated. She had been very ill. The doctor had given her up, but he had done all he could though he guessed well enough she could never pay him, and to-day he had sent his trusty housekeeper with a bowl of her special milk-broth, and to induce her to take a breath of fresh air in the late September sunshine. For it was no stormy September this year: the marsh lay brown and mellow with the hips and haws red on its hedges, and the river stealing across it to the sea; and the sea was dappled with the pale purple shadows cast upon its gently heaving surface by little fleecy puffs in the serenest of skies, that was only barred by the violet horizontal clouds of fine weather across the distance.

But the fine weather brought none of its peace to the widow; the placid sunshine seemed only to make her the more gloomy, as though she were fretting to have even the mist back again on the marsh—the mist through which she had so often listened and trembled—the mist that brought her the keenest memory of the worst, yet the best, that she had ever known on earth.

Every one had said that when Lucy Wood got over the shock she would “’ave ’er ’ealth again” as she had never had it through the last five years of her wretched married life, and Miss Hearn had been “pleased to think that the misguided woman wouldn’t ’ave nothing now to take ’er off them pore children as she ’ad been so wicked as to bring into this weary world.”

But every one had been wrong.

Miss Hearn had been shocked to see that the children looked less neat than formerly, and were more rarely sent to school, and shook her curls quite viciously when she declared that she should turn the woman out after all if she didn’t pay her rent next quarter; and Miss Hearn would have been more bitter than ever if she had heard the whisper that ran round to the effect that poor Lucy had been known to take her drop of comfort at times when she was most low. But the kindlier neighbours kept her secret and tried to screen her. Only they shook their heads too when the scarlet fever appeared in the village, and Tom and ’Lizabeth took it, and the doctor upbraided the mother for carelessness, and perhaps they might have been more down upon her still, but that the boy died, and the mother collapsed entirely, so that there was nothing for it but to help with the other children and nurse the woman—because there was no one else to do it.

Thanks to these good folk and the handy and patient little elder daughter, Lucy was creeping slowly back to life again, but it was helplessly and unwillingly, and the doctor’s old housekeeper was trying to put a little spirit into her this pleasant autumn day.

“Why, it’s a real treat to see ye out again, my dear,” she was saying cheerily. “And ye look nicely; don’t she, Sue?” she called to the little girl who was tidying up busily within.

The child came to the door to shake a duster; her plump, rosy checks were thinner and sallower than of yore, and her round, brown eyes less bright.

“Yes,” she said, speaking cheerfully, but looking across rather doubtfully at the invalid; “mother do look a bit spryer.”

“Why, ye’d be about agin in no time if ye’d but use a little h’effort yerself,” declared the old woman. “Doctor says so, and I’m sure ’e’d ought to know, seein’ as ’e brought ye through them h’awful times ye used to ’ave afore yer ’usbin’ was took.”

Lucy’s white face flushed as with anger.

“I didn’t ’ave no sich h’awful times as I’ve ’ad since!” she whined. “There was summit to get better for then.”

The child bit her lip and went indoors. There was silence for a moment while one could hear her clattering the irons down to the fire ready for the bit of laundry-work she was trying hard to keep pace with against the time mother should be fit to take it up again.

“Ye didn’t ought to talk so, Mrs. Wood,” said the woman. “What, ’aven’t ye got your childer?”

“What ye’ve got don’t giv ye back what ye ’aven’t got,” she said, in the same peevish tone.

“But ye ought to think o’ yer duty,” said the other.

Lucy flushed again.

“Oh, I’ve done my duty ’s well as most,” she said. “I don’t feel no call to be ’shamed. As for the gals, Sue be fit for service now, and I’ve ’eard of a place for ’er down town, and my sister ’ave promised to ’ave ’Lizabeth out to the ’Arbour till she be old enough to do for ’erself.”

“Ain’t ye afraid o’ lettin’ a gal grow up at the ’Arbour?” said the woman. “Don’t ye know what most o’ them comes to? And they do say....”

“What do they say?” cried Lucy fiercely.

“Lor’ a mercy,” said the woman, “ye didn’t ought to catch a body up so sharp. I was only a-goin’ to say as they do say the air down by them mud-banks ain’t ’ealthy for growin’ childer.”

“Oh, was that all?” said the widow, turning her face away.

The woman beside her shook her head, and lifted her eyes as much as to say that this was altogether past her comprehension; then, presently, as though to start a new subject of conversation, she said, cheerfully:

“’Ave ye ’eard as that Jim Casey ’ave got two years this time? ’E did ought to ha’ got it long ago, but....”

She stopped suddenly, for Sue had come up behind her and was tugging at her dress and making signs to her behind the mother’s back.

At first the old woman only gaped at the child, but slowly she seemed to grasp the situation, and nodding and winking at her knowingly, finished up lamely enough with: “but there, never mind, it don’t signify.”

The sick woman turned round and saw the child.

“Ye don’t need to worry, Sue,” said she, in just the same spiritless tone as before. “I don’t take no ’eed o’ Jim Casey now. There was a time I’d ha’ been pleased to be even with ’im for a-leadin’ astray of yer pore father but, Lor’, ’tain’t no use now. I thought I was pleased ’e’d come to grief that night ’e done ’is worst, but, Lor’, it didn’t bring me my man back, and I don’t know now as it ’d ’elp me if Jim Casey was to swing.”

“Lor’ a mercy!” ejaculated the old woman again.

And Sue wiped away a tear with the corner of her little apron; but the mother did not heed.

“Come, there, now,” said the housekeeper, presently, “if ’ere don’t come post-mistress to cheer ye up a bit! She told me she should step up this arternoon to see ye ’bout the family’s washin’ up at the ’Ill. Old Widow Collins died last week, ye know, and she thinks she can git it for ye, may be.”

“I don’t want none o’ Miss ’Earn’s favours,” snapped Lucy. “She wouldn’t gi’ me the job when I wanted it—she can keep it now.”

“Well, I’m sure,” sighed the other. “Ye didn’t ought to be so ungrateful, ye didn’t. Anyways, ye’ll ’ave to tell her so yerself, for I’m sure I won’t.”

“Oh, I’ll tell ’er,” said Lucy.

And the old woman stood aside in the doorway as the post-mistress—the pink of respectability in rusty black—came slowly up the steps.

“Pleased to see ye yerself again,” said she, in tones that were meant to be kind.

“Thank you,” replied Lucy curtly. “I’m not sure as I know what that is.”

Miss Hearn stared. She was forced to suppose that illness had affected Mrs. Wood’s brain, for a mere laundress could never dare be impertinent to her!

“Well, anyways on the road to work again,” said she conciliatingly. “And I’ve brought ye a nice job,” she went on, with a patronizing shake of her greasy black ringlets. "Pore old Mrs. Collins ’ave gone at last"—this with a pious closing of the lids over the little black eyes—“so I’ve asted the missus at the ‘’Ill ’ouse’ to take ye on i’stead.”

“Thank ye; I ain’t fit for no more work yet,” said the widow ungraciously.

“Nonsense!” declared the post-mistress authoritatively. “Ye’re in a good way to be better nor ever ye’ve been in yer life, ain’t she, ma’am?” turning to the old housekeeper, who still stood aside.

“The master do say she ’ave pulled through wonderful,” allowed the person addressed.

“I ain’t never goin’ to be the same no more,” declared Lucy obstinately, setting her lips tightly, and drawing her skinny little body together with her own petulant movement.

“Ye ’aven’t got no business to talk so,” persisted the post-mistress sharply. “Ye can be what you choose.”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to be no different, then,” repeated Lucy doggedly. “And I won’t take in no more work, thank ye.”

She tried to rise, but Miss Hearn held her with a mighty eye.

“Woman, do you know as you’re settin’ up yer ’orn against the Lord God A’mighty?” said she solemnly. “And do you know as you’ll be punished h’awful?”

“I been punished a’ready,” said Lucy.

“And if ye don’t do as ye ought by them as ye’ve brought into this sinful vale, ye’ll be punished worse,” decreed Miss Hearn.

“Them above ’as done their worst by me,” said Lucy, with a wan smile. “I don’t h’expec’ no more from them, and they don’t need to h’expec’ no more from me.”

Miss Hearn lifted her hands to heaven in silent horror.

“There, now, ye know ye care for the childer,” said the old housekeeper, from the doorway.

At the kind tones the tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes.

“There be enough for them,” she said.

“Not if ye pay yer way as ye should do,” said the post-mistress sententiously. “Folk ’as been kind cos o’ yer misfortune, but ’tain’t in reason they should keep it up. I’ve ’eard tell as ye ’an’t so much as paid for the smart funeral ye thought fit to ’ave a year ago.”

A spark of anger flew to Lucy’s weary eyes.

“Then it’s a lie!” she cried. “If I’d owed for the bread I put into the children’s mouths, I’d ha’ paid for that! And I don’t see what business it is o’ nobody’s neither if I chose to spend my money so as my own ’usbin’ should be nailed down in a coffin better nor some.”

She ended in a whimper, and sat shaking, the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. But the post-mistress had no mercy. She was incensed at being thus set at naught, and put no guard on her tongue.

“Ye’ll ’ave them children on the parish,” she said, “and a disgrace to ye it’ll be! Ye ’ad wits enough and spunk enough so long as ’e was to do for! Didn’t ye wrong ’em enough whiles ’e was livin’ but what ye must wrong ’em worse now the Lord ’ave mercifully delivered ye from ’im? I’m ashamed of ye, Lucy Wood! And all for the sake o’ a drunken blackguard as couldn’t so much as keep ’isself to ye!”

Lucy had said she would never be the woman she was; but in a moment all her old energy returned to her.

“What d’ye mean?” she said.

“Well, if ye don’t know ye’d p’ra’ps best should,” said the post-mistress, half ashamed yet determined to have her say. “I mean as yer man....”

But she stepped aside hurriedly, for Lucy had risen tottering to her feet, and stood pointing to the road.

“Get out o’ ’ere!” interrupted she fiercely, her whole little body trembling with rage. “I know well enough what ye mean! But if ye dare so much as breathe a word agin my man in my ’ouse, I’ll knock ye down them stairs.”

All Miss Hearn’s elderly blood flew in a purple flood to her face.

“Hush, for mercy’s sake, ye don’t know what ye’re sayin’,” cried the old housekeeper in a frightened whisper.

“Yes, I do,” she said, quietly now. "Sue"—seeing the child standing in the doorway with a white and terrified face—“Sue, don’t be frightened, but come ’ere. We ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave father made light of, be we? Miss ’Earn says I ought sooner to ha’ schooled you and ’Lizbeth than ’ave bought yer father a decent coffin. But ye ain’t o’ that mind, I know!”

The child had come out on to the little terrace.

“No, mother,” said she valiantly, though in a low voice.

Lucy drew the girl to her and put her arm round her waist.

“We’ll stand up agin’ ’em when they take to makin’ light o’ yer father, anyways,” panted she, as she watched Miss Hearn pound down the stairs, muttering as she went. “And I’d take it very kindly o’ you if you’d see as the neighbours ’ears o’ this and understands my meanin’,” she added faintly, turning to the other old woman as she sank exhausted back into her chair.

“Yes, yes, don’t you worry now,” said the latter, sorely perplexed and scared as she tried to soothe her. “They’ll ’ear it all fast enough.”

“Sue be a good girl,” added the mother, patting the child feebly. “I ain’t long for this world, but so long as I’m ’ere they sha’n’t speak ill o’ my Jerry when I’m by, and Sue’ll stand by me in that.”

“Nobody won’t do it agin,” said the old woman. And then to the girl in an undertone: “Get ’er to bed, dear. I’ll run and tell the doctor. I’m afeard she might ha’ done ’erself a mischief.”

And she too stumped down the broken steps.

“I know I ’aven’t done the best for you and the little ’uns since father went,” whimpered the mother. “But father were allers fust, and I never couldn’t do nothin’ when ’e weren’t by. Ye’ll forgive me for it, Sue, and p’r’aps God will too.”

The child did not answer for a moment. Then she said simply:

“O’ course father were allers fust.”

And wearily the mother repeated:

“Yes, father were allers fust.”