Then it was that the call came to Mary Whittaker.  She must go back to the man that had wronged her.  At first the thought struck terror to her heart; all the horror of her ignominy in the market-place came back to her mind and filled her with a loathing sickness.  For two days she fought against the promptings of her better nature, but it was a losing battle.  At last she broached the subject to her husband.  “I mun go back to Learoyd,” she said, speaking in those quiet, measured tones which Tom Parfitt had learnt to associate with an inflexible will.  Her husband gave her a look in which admiration for her courage was at odds with bitter opposition to the proposal.

“Thou sal do nowt o’ t’ sort,” he said, after a moment’s pause.  “There’s no call for thee to go nigh him after all he’s done to thee.”

“Nay, but he wants me; t’ doctor says he mun have somebody to live wi’ him.”

“If he wanted thee he’d coom an’ seek thee, stubbornly answered Parfitt.

“He’ll noan do that.  I know Learoyd.  He’s ower proud to axe a favour thro’ anybody, let alone thro’ me.”

“Then he can dee in his pride.  He’s gotten shut o’ thee for good an’ all, an’ trodden thee i’ t’ muck, t’ owd Jezebel.”

“Nay, don’t call him, Tom.  Didn’t chapel steward say that he was a changed man sin’ he took to goin’ to t’ chapil?”

This was almost the only serious dispute that had disturbed the even tenor of their married life, and it ended in compromise.  Mary was to go to the farm, and if Learoyd needed her she was to stay for a month; at the end of that time she would return home.  Her husband’s offer to accompany her was declined.  Instead, she asked him to pay a visit to the doctor and inform him of her plan.  The doctor heartily approved of all that Mary Whittaker had taken upon herself to do; he said he would visit his patient in the morning, and if all were going on well would take away the nurse with him in his brougham.  Then, as soon as possible after their departure, Mary was to come to the farm and see Learoyd when he was alone.

It was a bright April morning when Mary Whittaker set out on foot for Fieldhead Farm.  There had been rain the night before and the whole sky was full of fleecy cumulus clouds, some of which enclosed large patches of blue sky that looked like tranquil polar seas surrounded by hummocks of frozen snow.  Now and again a small cloud, at a lower elevation than the rest, would sail gaily across these blue pools, and then be lost to view against the white clouds on the other side.  Larks and chaffinches were everywhere in full song, and the sunshine had brought the honey-bees to the palm-willows which, during the last ten days, had changed their flower-buds from silver to gold.  As Mary approached the farm she saw the first swallows of the season darting in tremulous flight across the meadows, and their presence cheered her.  They had come back to the farm, like herself, after a period of absence, and a feeling of comradeship with them penetrated to her heart.