else you'd be in prison now. Ban't
meant you should give yourself up--that's how I read it."

"'T is cowardly, waitin' an' playin' into his hands; an' if you awnly
knawed how this has fouled my mind wi' evil, an' soured the very taste
of what I eat, an' dulled the faace of life, an' blunted the right
feeling in me even for them I love best, you'd never bid me bide on
under it. 'T is rotting me--body an' sawl--that's what 't is doin'. An'
now I be come to such a pass that if I met un to-morrow an' he swore on
his dying oath he'd never tell, I shouldn't be contented even wi'
that."

"No such gude fortune," sighed Phoebe.

"'T wouldn't be gude fortune," answered her husband. "I'm like a dirty
chamber coated wi' cobwebs an' them ghostly auld spiders as hangs dead
in unsecured corners. Plaaces so left gets worse. My mind 's all in a
ferment, an' 't wouldn't be none the better now if Jan Grimbal broke
his damned neck to-morrow an' took my secret with him. I caan't breathe
for it; it 's suffocating me."

Phoebe used subtlety in her answer, and invited him to view the position
from her standpoint rather than his own.

"Think o' me, then, an' t' others. 'T is plain selfishness, this talk,
if you looks to the bottom of it."

"As to that, I doan't say so," began Mr. Lyddon, slowly stuffing his
pipe. "No. When a man goes so deep into his heart as what Will have
before me this minute, doan't become no man to judge un, or tell 'bout
selfishness. Us have got to save our awn sawls, an' us must even leave
wife, an' mother, and childer if theer 's no other way to do it. Ban't
no right living--ban't no fair travelling in double harness wi'
conscience, onless you've got a clean mind. An' yet waitin' 'pears the
only way o' wisdom just here. You've never got room in that head o'
yourn for more 'n wan thought to a time; an' I doan't blame 'e theer
neither, for a chap wi' wan idea, if he sticks to it, goes further 'n
him as drives a team of thoughts half broken in. I mean you 'm
forgettin' your mother for the moment. I should say, wait for her
mendin' 'fore you do anything."

Back came Blanchard's mind to his mother with a whole-hearted swing.

"Ess," he said, "you 'm right theer. My plaace is handy to her till she
'm movin'; an' if he tries to take me before she 'm down-house again, by
God! I'll--"

"Let it bide that way then. Put t' other matter out o' your mind so far
as you can. Fill your pipe an' suck deep at it. I haven't seen