On she battled, already feeling weak and tired; but always the thought of home waiting for her impelled her onward.  Home was waiting over there—­waiting just two miles off, where she could see the twinkling of the lights from the pithead at which she had worked, and where she had been so happy at the dreams conjured by six and sixpence per week.  Down rushed the wind from the hills, careering along the wide moor, driving the rain and hail in front, as if he would burst the barriers of the world and go free.

She halted and turned her back upon the blows, as if she would fall; but there were light and warmth, and love and cheerfulness over there, if only she could hold out till she reached them.

She turned again, and a sheep scampered across the moorland path just in front, and the soft bleat of an early lamb soothed the quick excited leap in her heart.  The rain ceased, and a pale glitter of the rim of a moon, like the paring of a giant’s nail in the sky, glinted from behind the dark cloud, and flung a silver radiance over the bog-pools around, which glittered like patches of fairy silver upon a land of romance.

She was wet, but not cold.  The fever in her blood raged and she staggered forward again, slowly and tottering.  A smile was playing about her lips and eyes.  Her lips were parted, and her breast rose and fell like the heaving beat of an engine.  But home beckoned and lured her onward, and the hope of a long dream filled her soul.  Again a sharp scurry in front drove her heart to her mouth, as two hares battled and tore at each other for the love of the female which sat close by, watching the contest.

The sharp swish of the wings of lapwings, as they dived towards her, filling the moors with their hard rasping double note, and also battling for possession of a mate, stirred her frightened blood; and at every step some new terror thrilled her, and kept her continually in a state of fear.

Still she plodded on, and another squall of rain and hail followed, giving place soon to the glory of the cold moon, and again obscuring it in a quick succession of showers and calm moonshine.  But there was home in front, and she was always drawing nearer.  Just a little while now, a few hundred yards or so, and she would be there.

Weak and exhausted, stumbling and rising again, driven by that unrelenting, irresistible desire, this poor waif of humanity, impelled by sheer force of will, staggered and crawled towards its hope, forward to its dream, and at last stood by the window of the home it had sought.

Panting and utterly worn out, she stood holding on to the window ledge, her will now weakened, her strength of mind gone, and her desire forsaking her now that she was there.

The wind fell to a mere whisper, and she stooped to look in at a chink in the shutter, the tears running in hot, scalding streams from her eyes and blinding her vision.  The soft stirring of little limbs beneath her heart brought back the old desire to hide herself from everyone she had known.