“No call for your coming.  ’Tis awnly a short mile.”

“But I must.  I’ll carry the laddie.  Poor little man!  Hard to be the cause of such a bother.”

He picked Timothy up so gently that the child did not wake.

“Now,” he said, “come along.  You must be tired already.”

“How gude you be!” she said wearily.  “I’m glad you doan’t scold or fall into a rage wi’ me, for I knaw I’m right.  The bwoy’s better away, and I’m small use to any now.  But I can be busy with this little wan.  I might do worse than give up my life to un—­eh, Martin?”

Then some power put words in his mouth.  He trembled when he had spoken them, but he would not have recalled them.

“You couldn’t do better.  It’s a duty staring you in the face.”

She started violently, and her dark skin flamed under the night.

“Why d’you say that?” she asked, with loud, harsh voice, and stopping still as she did so.  “Why d’you say ’duty’?”

He, too, stood and looked at her.

“My dear,” he answered, “love’s a quick, subtle thing.  It can make even such a man as I am less stupid than Nature built him.  It fires dull brains; it adds sight to dim eyes; it shows the bookworm how to find out secrets hidden from keener spirits; it lifts a veil from the loved one and lets the lover see more than anybody else can.  Be patient with me.  I spoke because I love you still with all my heart and soul, Chris; I spoke, because what I feel for you is lifelong, and cannot change.  Had I not still worshipped the earth under your feet I would have died rather than tell you.  But love makes me bold.  I have watched you so long and prayed for you so often.  I have seen little differences in you that nobody else saw.  And to-day I know.  I knew when you picked up Timothy and flew at Will.  Since then I’ve wandered Heaven can tell where, just thinking and thinking and wondering and seeing no way.  And all the time God meant me to come and find you and tell you.”

She understood; she gave one bitter cry that started an echo from ruined mine-workings hard at hand; then she turned from him, and, in a moment of sheer hopeless misery, flung herself and her wrecked ambitions upon the ground by the wayside.

For a moment the man stood scared by this desperate answer to his words.  Then he put his burden down, approached Chris, knelt beside her, and tried to raise her.  She sat up at last with panting breast and eyes in which some terror sat.

“You!” she said.  “You to knaw!  Wasn’t my cup full enough before but that my wan hope should be cut away, tu?  My God, I ’mauld in sorrow now—­very auld.  But ‘t is awver at last.  You knaw, an’ I had to hear it from your awn lips!  Theer ’s nought worse in the world for me now.”

Her hands were pressed against her bosom, and as he unconsciously moved a little towards her she shrank backwards, then rose to her feet.  Timothy woke and cried, upon which she turned to him and picked him up.