’Oh, Josiah, what words to me!  Have I ever stopped your liberty?  Would I not give my life to secure it?’

‘Let me go, then, now.  I tell you that I have business in hand.’

‘But I will go with you.  I well be ready in an instant.’

’You go!  Why should you go?  Are there not the children for you to mind?’

‘There is only Jane.’

‘Stay with her, then.  Why should you go about the parish?’ She still held him by the cloak, and looked anxiously up into his face.  ‘Woman,’ he said, raising his voice, ’what is that you dread?  I command you to tell me what it is you fear?’ He had now taken hold of her by the shoulder, slightly thrusting her from him, so that he might see her face, by the dim light of the single candle.  ’Speak, I say.  What is it that you think I shall do?’

’Dearest, I know that you will be better at home, better with me, than you can be on such a morning as this out in the cold damp air.’

‘And is that all?’ He looked hard at her, while she returned his gaze with beseeching loving eyes.  ’It there nothing behind, that you will not tell me?’

She paused for a moment before she replied.  She had never lied to him.  She could not lie to him.  ‘I wish you knew my heart towards you,’ she said, ‘with all and everything in it.’

’I know your heart well, but I want to know your mind.  Why would you persuade me not to go out among my poor?’

’Because it will be bad for you to be out alone in the dark lanes, in the mud and wet, thinking of your sorrow.  You will brood over it till you will lose your senses through the intensity of your grief.  You will stand out in the cold air, forgetful of everything around you, till your limbs will be numbed, and your blood chilled—­’

‘And then—?’

‘Oh, Josiah, do not hold me like that, and look at me so angrily.’

’And even then I will bear my burden till the Lord in His mercy shall see fit to relieve me.  Even then I will endure, though a bare bodkin or leaf of hemlock would put an end to it.  Let me pass on; you need fear nothing.’

She did let him pass without another word, and he went out of the house, shutting the door after him noiselessly, and closing the wicket gate of the garden.  For a while she sat herself down on the nearest chair, and tried to make up her mind how she might best treat him in his present state of mind.  As regarded the present morning her heart was at ease.  She new that he would do now nothing of that which she had apprehended.  She could trust him not to be false in his word to her, though she could not before have trusted him not to commit so much heavier a sin.  If he would really employ himself from morning till night among the poor, he would be better so—­his trouble would be easier of endurance—­than with any other employment which he could adopt.  What she most dreaded was that he should sit idle over the fire and do nothing.  When he was so