This incident did not discourage Jane in her new resolve.  She told herself at once that the first steps on a good or wise road were sure to be both difficult and painful; and in the morning John’s cheerful, grateful words and his brave sunny face repaid her fully for the oblivion to which she had consigned her own trials and the subjection she had enforced upon her own personality.

This was the new battle-ground on which she now stood, and at first John hardly comprehended the hard, self-denying conflict she was waging.  One day he was peculiarly struck with an act of self-denial which also involved for Jane a slight humiliation, that he could not but wonder at her submission.  He looked at her in astonishment and he did not know whether he admired her self-control and generosity or not.  The circumstance puzzled and troubled him.  That afternoon he had to go to Yoden to see his brother, and he came home by way of Hatton Hall.

As he anticipated, he found his mother pleasantly enjoying her cup of afternoon tea, and she rose with a cry of love to welcome him.

“I was thinking of thee, John, and then I heard thy footsteps.  I hev the best pot of tea in Yorkshire at my right hand; I’m sure thou wilt hev a cup.”

“To be sure I will.  It is one of the things I came for, and I want to talk to you half an hour.”

“Say all that is in thy heart, and there’s nothing helps talk, like a cup of good tea.  Whatever does thou want to talk to me about?”

“I want to talk to you about Jane.”

“Well then, be careful what thou says.  No man’s mother is a fair counselor about his wife.  They will both say more than they ought to say, especially if she isn’t present to explain; and when they don’t fully understand, how can they advise?”

“You could not be unjust to anyone, mother?”

“Well, then?”

“She is so much better than she has ever been since the child went away.”

“She is doing her best.  Thou must help her with all thy heart and soul.”

“All her love for me seems to have come back.”

“It never left thee for a moment.”

“But for weeks and months she has not seemed to care for anything but her memory of Martha.”

“That is the way men’s big unsuspecting feet go blundering and crushing through a woman’s heart.  In the first place, she was overwhelmed with grief at Martha’s sudden death and at her own apparent instrumentality in it.”

“I loved Martha as well, perhaps better, than Jane.”

“Not thou!  Thou never felt one thrill of a mother’s love.  Jane would have died twice over to save her child.  Thou said with all the bitterness of death in thy soul, ‘God’s will be done.’”

“We will let that pass.  Why has her grief been so long-continued?”