“My husband has business at Haxey.  We came from Lincoln this morning, and just before sunset I crept over for a look at the house, hoping for a glimpse of you and Charles.  They will not have me inside, Jack:  father will not see me, and has forbidden the others.  But I saw Johnny Whitelamb.  He told me that Charles was indoors, at work transcribing for father, and not easily fetched out; but that you were expected home from Epworth to-night.  So I came to meet you.  Was I running?  I dare say.  I was thirsty to see your face, dear, and hear your voice.”

“We have all dealt hardly with you, Hetty.”

“Ah, let that be!  I must not pity myself, you understand?  Indeed, dear, I was not thinking of myself.  If only I could be invisible, and steal into the house at times and sit me down in a corner and watch their faces and listen!  That would be enough, brother:  I don’t ask to join in that life again—­only to stand apart and feed my eyes on it.”

“You are not happy, then?”

“Happy?” She mused for a while.  “My man is kind to me:  kinder than I deserve.  If God gives us a child—­” She broke off, lowered her eyes and stammered, “You heard that I had—­that one was born!  Dead.  He never breathed, the doctor told me.  I ought to be glad, for his sake—­and for William’s—­but I cannot be.”

“It was God’s goodness.  Look at Sukey, now; how much of her time her children take up.”

She drew back sharply and peered at him through the dusk.

“Now that time is restored to you,” he went on, “you have nothing to do but to serve God without distraction, till you are sanctified in body, soul and spirit.”

“Jacky, dear,” she asked hoarsely, “have they taught you at Oxford to speak like that?”

He was offended, and showed it.  “I have been speaking up for you; too warmly for my comfort.  Father and mother, and indeed all but Molly, will have it that you talked lightly to them; that your penitence was feigned.  I would not believe this, but that, as by marriage you redeemed your conduct, so now you must be striving to redeem your soul.  If you deny this, I have been in error and must tell them so.”

For a while she stood considering.  “Brother,” she said, “I will be plain with you.  Since this marriage was forced upon me, I have tried—­and, please God, I will go on trying—­to redeem my conduct.  But of my soul I scarcely think at all.”

“Hetty, this is monstrous.”

“I pray,” she went on, “for help to be good.  With tears I pray for it, and all day long I am trying to be good and do my duty.  As for my soul, sometimes I wake and see the need to be anxious for it, and resolve to think of it anxiously:  but when the morning comes, I have no time—­the day is too full.  And sometimes I grow rebellious and vow that it is no affair of mine:  let them answer for it who took it in charge and drove me to tread this path.  And sometimes I tell myself