Nature itself had turned her back on the town:  the river turned aside, and but half a river crept reluctant by; the hills were but bare banks of yellow clay.  There was a cinder-road leading through these.  Margaret climbed it slowly.  The low town-hills, as I said, were bare, covered at their bases with dingy stubble-fields.  In the sides bordering the road gaped the black mouths of the coal-pits that burrowed under the hills, under the town.  Trade everywhere,—­on the earth and under it.  No wonder the girl called it a hard, scraping world.  But when the road had crept through these hills, it suddenly shook off the cinders, and turned into the brown mould of the meadows,—­turned its back on trade and the smoky town, and speedily left it out of sight contemptuously, never looking back once.  This was the country now in earnest.

Margaret slackened her step, drawing long breaths of the fresh cold air.  Far behind her, panting and puffing along, came a black, burly figure, Dr. Knowles.  She had seen him behind her all the way, but they did not speak.  Between the two there lay that repellant resemblance which made them like close relations,—­closer when they were silent.  You know such people?  When you speak to them, the little sharp points clash.  Yet they are the people whom you surely know you will meet in the life beyond death, “saved” or not.  The Doctor came slowly along the quiet country-road, watching the woman’s figure going as slowly before him.  He had a curious interest in the girl,—­a secret reason for the interest, which as yet he kept darkly to himself.  For this reason he tried to fancy how her new life would seem to her.  It should be hard enough, her work,—­he was determined on that; her strength and endurance must be tested to the uttermost.  He must know what stuff was in the weapon before he used it.  He had been reading the slow, cold thing for years,—­had not got into its secret yet.  But there was power there, and it was the power he wanted.  Her history was simple enough:  she was going into the mill to support a helpless father and mother; it was a common story; she had given up much for them;—­other women did the same.  He gave her scanty praise.  Two years ago (he had keen, watchful eyes, this man) he had fancied that the poor homely girl had a dream, as most women have, of love and marriage:  she had put it aside, he thought, forever; it was too expensive a luxury; she had to begin the life-long battle for bread and butter.  Her dream had been real and pure, perhaps; for she accepted no sham love in its place:  if it had left an empty hunger in her heart, she had not tried to fill it.  Well, well, it was the old story.  Yet he looked after her kindly, as he thought of it; as some people look sorrowfully at children, going back to their own childhood.  For a moment he half relented in his purpose, thinking, perhaps, her work for life was hard enough.  But no:  this woman had been planned and kept by God for higher uses than daughter or wife or mother.  It was his part to put her work into her hands.