An intense jealousy of the boy took possession of her.  She went home in a passion of envy and suspicion.  She was a good rider, but John in these late years had never found time to give her a gallop, and indeed had persuaded her to sell her pretty riding-horse and outfit.  Yet Stephen had a pony and she was sure John must have bought it.  Stephen must have been at the mill early. Why? Then she recalled John’s look of love and pride in the boy, his watchful care over him, his laughter and apparent cheerfulness.

She brooded over these things for some hours, then gave her thought speech and in slow, icy tones said with intense feeling, “Of course, he regards Stephen as the future master of Hatton Hall and Hatton factory.  He is always bringing Stephen and my Martha together.  He intends them to marry.  They shall not.  Martha is mine—­she is Harlow”—­then after a long pause, “They are cousins.  I shall have religious scruples.”

She did not name this incident to John and it was some days before John said, “Stephen is going to be a fine horseman.  His grandfather bought him a pony, a beautiful spirited animal, and Steve was at once upon his back.  Yorkshire boys take to horses, as ducks to the water.  Mother says I leaped into the saddle before I was five years old.”

Jane smiled faintly at this last remark and John said no more on the subject.  He understood it to be the better way.  But it had been ever since a restless, unhappy thought below all other thoughts in Jane’s mind, and finally she had swift personal whispers and slow boring suppositions which, if she had put them into words, would have sounded very like, “Lucy may be disappointed yet!  John might have a son of his own.  Many things happen as the clock goes round.”

She was in one of these jealous moods on the morning after John had told her he must close the mill.  Then Mrs. Levy called, and asked if she would drive with her to Brent’s Farm.  “We have received a large number of young children from Metwold,” she said, “and I want to secure milk for them.”

“Brent’s Farm!” replied Jane.  “I never heard of the place.”

“O my dear Mrs. Hatton, it is only a small farm on the Ripon road.  The farmer is a poor man but he has five or six cows and he sells their milk in Hatton.  I want to secure it all.”

“Is that fair to the rest of his customers?” asked Jane, with an air of righteous consistency.

“I do not know,” was the answer.  “I never asked myself.  I think it is fair to get it for babies who cannot bargain for their milk—­the people they take it from can speak for themselves.”

They found Brent’s Farm to be a rough, roomy stone cottage on the roadside.  There was some pasture land at the back of the house and some cows feeding on it.  A stone barn was not far off, and the woman who answered their call said, “If you be wanting Sam Brent, you’ll find him in the barn, threshing out some wheat.”