two
live? Her little stock of money would not last very long. She must get
work, but she knew more about the world after her years at Skeaton. She
knew how ignorant she was, how uneducated and how unsophisticated. She
did not doubt her ability to fight her way, but there might be weary
months first, and meanwhile what of Martin?

She looked at him, asleep now in a corner of the carriage, his soft hat
pulled down over his eyes, his head sunk, his hands heavy and idle on
his lap. A fear caught at her heart as she watched him; he looked,
indeed, terribly ill, exhausted with struggle, and now, with all the
bitterness and despair drowned in sleep, very gentle and helpless. She
bent over and folded the rug more closely round his knees. Had he woken
then and seen her gaze! Her hand'' routed for an instant on his, then
she withdrew back into her own corner.

That coming back into Glebeshire could not but be wonderful to her. She
had been away for so long and it was her home.

The tranquillity and peace of the spring evening clothed her like a
garment, the brown valleys, the soft green of the fields, the mild blue
of the sky touched her until she could with difficulty keep back her
tears.

"Oh, make it right!" she whispered; "make it right! Give him to me
again--I do love him so!"

It was dusk when they arrived at Clinton St. Mary's.

The little station stood open to all the winds of heaven blowing in
from the wide expanses of St. Mary's Moor. Maggie remembered, as though
it were yesterday, her arrival at that station with Aunt Anne. Yes, she
had grown since then.

A trap was waiting for them. Martin was still very silent, but he liked
the air with the tang of the sea in it, and he asked sometimes about
the names of places. As they drew nearer and nearer to all the
old--remembered scenes, Maggie's heart beat faster and faster--this
lane, that field, that cottage. And then, at last, there was the
Vicarage perched on the top of the hill, with its chimneys like cats'
ears!

She thought of Uncle Mathew. The sight of the tranquil evening the
happiness and comfort of the fields enabled her to think of him, for
the first time, quietly. She could face deliberately his death. It was
as though he had been waiting for her here and had come forward to
reassure her.

They drove through the quiet little village, out on to the high road,
then down a side lane, the hedges brushing against the sides of the
jingle, then through the g