ase of
butlerhood that floated on it, but phrases came to her. He was asking
the village people what would happen when the squire came home and
heard of this; and reminding them that they were all the squire's
tenants. A silence fell on her pursuers. From the rear old Mr. Goode's
kind voice said something about "A bit of boys' fun, Mr. Peacey"; Ned
Turk piped, "We don't mean no 'arm," and the crowd dispersed. It
shuffled its heels on the cobbles; it raised jeers which were mitigated
and not sent in her direction, but were still jeers; it beat its tin
cans in a disoriented way, as if it were trying to save its self-respect
by pretending that Mr. Peacey had been so much mistaken in the object of
their demonstration that there was no harm in going on with it.

She was left standing in the middle of the road, alone with Peacey. She
realised that she was safe. If she could rest now she would keep her
child. She knew relief but not exultation. It was as if life had been
handed back to her, but not before some drop of vileness had been mixed
with the cup. There was nothing to redeem the harm of that afternoon:
the quality of her rescue had exactly matched the peril from which she
had been rescued. When Peacey's voice had boomed out above her it had
expressed agreeable and complete harmony with the minds of the crowd; it
had betrayed that he, too, could imagine no pleasure more delightful
than stoning a pregnant girl, that he had his position to think of, and
he begged them to have similar prudence. He had risked nothing of his
reputation as a just man in Roothing to save her. To this loathsome
world Harry, who had been her lover for two years, had left her and her
divine child. She looked up at Peacey and laughed.

His eyes dwelt on her with what might have been forgiveness. "You'd best
come into Cliffe's cottage," he said, and went before her. It struck
her, as she followed him, that to people watching them down the street
it would look as if she was following him almost against his will or
without his knowledge. Well, she must lie down, and this was the only
door that was open to her. She must follow him.

Once they were within the porch he bent over her solicitously, and
through his loose-parted lips came the softest murmur: "Poor little
girl!" Had he said that for her to hear, or had some real tenderness in
his heart spoken to itself? Was he really a kind man? She looked at him
searchingly, imploringly, but from his larg