glanced at them. He had never had any hope, except when he had deceived himself.

“It may be a tumour; we must wait and see,” said Dr. Jameson.

“And if it is,” said Annie, “can you sweal it away?”

“Probably,” said the doctor.

Paul put eight sovereigns and half a sovereign on the table. The doctor counted them, took a florin out of his purse, and put that down.

“Thank you!” he said. “I’m sorry Mrs. Morel is so ill. But we must see what we can do.”

“There can’t be an operation?” said Paul.

The doctor shook his head.

“No,” he said; “and even if there could, her heart wouldn’t stand it.”

“Is her heart risky?” asked Paul.

“Yes; you must be careful with her.”

“Very risky?”

“No—er—no, no! Just take care.”

And the doctor was gone.

Then Paul carried his mother downstairs. She lay simply, like a child. But when he was on the stairs, she put her arms round his neck, clinging.

“I’m so frightened of these beastly stairs,” she said.

And he was frightened, too. He would let Leonard do it another time. He felt he could not carry her.

“He thinks it’s only a tumour!” cried Annie to her mother. “And he can sweal it away.”

“I knew he could,” protested Mrs. Morel scornfully.

She pretended not to notice that Paul had gone out of the room. He sat in the kitchen, smoking. Then he tried to brush some grey ash off his coat. He looked again. It was one of his mother’s grey hairs. It was so long! He held it up, and it drifted into the chimney. He let go. The long grey hair floated and was gone in the blackness of the chimney.

The next day he kissed her before going back to work. It was very early in the morning, and they were alone.

“You won’t fret, my boy!” she said.

“No, mother.”

“No; it would be silly. And take care of yourself.”

“Yes,” he answered. Then, after a while: “And I shall come next Saturday, and shall bring my father?”

“I suppose he wants to come,” she replied. “At any rate, if he does you’ll have to let him.”

He kissed her again, and stroked the hair from her temples, gently, tenderly, as if she were a lover.

“Shan’t you be late?” she murmured.

“I’m going,” he said, very low.

Still he sat a few minutes, stroking the brown and grey hair from her temples.

“And you won’t be any worse, mother?”

“No, my son.”

“You promise me?”

“Yes; I won’t be any worse.”

He kissed her, held her in his arms for a moment, and was gone. In the early sunny morning he ran to the station, crying all the way; he did not know what for. And her blue eyes were wide and staring as she thought of him.

In the afternoon he went a walk with Clara. They sat in the little wood where bluebells were standing. He took her hand.

“You’ll see,” he said to Clara, “she’ll never be better.”

“Oh, you don’t know!” replied the other.

“I do,” he said.

She caught him impulsively to her breast.

“Try and forget it, dear,” she said; “try and forget it.”

“I will,” he answered.

Her breast was there, warm for him; her hands were in his hair. It was comforting, and he held his arms round her. But he did not forget. He only talked to Clara of something else. And it was always so. When she felt it coming, the agony, she cried to him:

“Don’t think of it, Paul! Don’t think of it, my darling!”

And she pressed him to her breast, rocked him, soothed him like a child. So he put the trouble aside for her sake, to take it up again immediately he was alone. All the time, as he went about, he cried mechanically. His mind and hands were busy. He cried, he did not know why. It was his blood weeping. He was just as much alone whether he was with Clara or with the men in the White Horse. Just himself and this pressure inside him, that was all that existed. He read sometimes. He had to keep his mind occupied. And Clara was a way of occupying his mind.

On the Saturday Walter Morel went to Sheffield. He was a forlorn figure, looking rather as if nobody owned him. Paul ran upstairs.

“My father’s come,” he said, kissing his mother.

“Has he?” she answered weariedly.

The old collier came rather frightened into the bedroom.

“How dun I find thee, lass?” he said, going forward and kissing her in a hasty, timid fashion.

“Well, I’m middlin’,” she replied.

“I see tha art,” he said. He stood looking down on her. Then