She was not to be pardoned: the offence was too , daring, and final. At the same time, the unappeasable ire of the old man tended to weaken his power over her. All her life she had been terrorised by the fear of a which had never reached the superlative degree until that day. Now that she had seen and felt the limit of his anger, she became aware that she could endure it; the curse was heavy, and perhaps more irksome than heavy, but she survived; she continued to breathe, eat, drink, and sleep; her father's power stopped short of annihilation. Here, too, was a satisfaction: that things could not be worse. And still greater comfort lay in the fact that she had not only the deliverance of Willie Price, but had secured absolute concerning the episode.  
The next day was Saturday, when, after breakfast, it was Ephraim's custom to give Anna the weekly sovereign for housekeeping.
 
'Here, Agnes,' he said, turning in his armchair to face the child, and drawing a sovereign from his waistcoat-pocket, 'take charge o' this, and mind ye make it go as far as ye can.' His tone conveyed a subsidiary message: 'I am terribly angry, but I am not angry with you. However, behave yourself.'
 
The child mechanically took the coin, scared by this proof of an domestic convulsion. Anna, with a of the lips, rose and went into the kitchen. Agnes followed, after a , and in silence gave up the sovereign.
 
'What is it all about, Anna?' she ventured to ask that night.
 
'Never mind,' said Anna .
 
The question had needed some courage, for, at certain times, Agnes would as easily have trifled with her father as with Anna. From that moment, with the passive fatalism characteristic of her years, Agnes' spirits began to rise again to the normal level. She accepted the new situation, and fitted herself into it with a child's . If Anna naturally felt a slight against this too and attitude on the part of the child, she never showed it.
 
Nearly a week later, Anna received a postcard from Beatrice announcing her complete recovery, and the return of her parents and herself to Bursley. That same afternoon, a cab with much luggage passed up the street as Anna was fixing clean curtains in her father's bedroom. Beatrice, on the look-out, waved a hand and smiled, and Anna responded to the signals. She was glad now that the Suttons had come back, though for several days she had almost forgotten their existence. On the Saturday afternoon, Mynors called. Anna was in the kitchen; she heard him scuffling with Agnes in the lobby, and then talking to her father. Three times she had seen him since her disgrace, and each time the secret bitterness of her soul, despite effort to repress it, had the meeting—it had been plain, indeed, that she was profoundly disturbed; he had at first not to observe the change in her, and she, anticipating his questions, hinted that the trouble was with her father, and had no reference to himself, and that she preferred not to discuss it at all; , and too young in courtship yet to presume on a lover's rights, he respected her wish, and endeavoured by every art to restore her to . This time, as she went to greet him in the parlour, she resolved that he should see no more of the shadow. He noticed instantly the difference in her face.
 
'I've come to take you into Sutton's for tea—and for the evening,' he said eagerly. 'You must come. They are very anxious to see you. I've told your father,' he added. Ephraim had vanished into his office.
 
'What did he say, Henry?' she asked timidly.
 
'He said you must please yourself, of course. Come along, love. Mustn't she, Agnes?'
 
Agnes , and said that she would get her father's tea, and his supper too.
 
'You will come,' he urged. She nodded, smiling thoughtfully, and he kissed her, for the first time in front of Agnes, who was filled with pride at this proof of their confidence in her.
 
'I'm ready, Henry,' Anna said, a quarter of an hour later, and they went across to Sutton's.
 
'Anna, tell me all about it,' Beatrice burst out when she and Anna had fled to her bedroom. 'I'm so glad. Do you love him really—truly? He's dreadfully fond of you. He told me so this morning; we had quite a long chat in the market. I think you're both very lucky, you know.' She kissed Anna for the third time. Anna looked at her smiling but silent.
 
'Well?' Beatrice said.
 
'What do you want me to say?'
 
'Oh! You are the funniest girl, Anna, I ever met. "What do you want me to say," indeed!' Beatrice added in a different tone: 'Don't imagine this affair was the least bit of a surprise to us. It wasn't. The fact is, Henry had—oh! well, never mind. Do you know, mother and dad used to think there was something between Henry and me. But there wasn't, you know—not really. I tell you that, so that you won't be able to say you were kept in the dark. When shall you be married, Anna?'
 
'I haven't the least idea,' Anna replied, and began to question Beatrice about her .
 
'I'm well,' Beatrice said. 'It's always the same. If I catch anything I catch it bad and get it over quickly.'
 
'Now, how long are you two chatterboxes going to stay here?' It was Mrs. Sutton who came into the room. 'Bee, you've got those sewing-meeting letters to write. Eh, Anna, but I'm glad of this. You'll make him a good wife. You two'll just suit each other.'
 
Anna could not but be impressed by this unaffected joy of her friends in the engagement. Her spirits rose, and once more she saw visions of future happiness. At tea, Alderman Sutton added his felicitations to the rest, with that flattering air of intimate sympathy and comprehension which some men can adopt towards young girls. The tea, made magnificent in honour of the , was such a meal as could only have been compassed in Staffordshire or Yorkshire—a high tea of the last richness and , gracious to the palate, but ruthless in its demands on the stomach. At one end of the table, which glittered with silver, glass, and Longshaw china, was a which had been boiled for four hours; at the other, a hot pork-pie, islanded in liquor, which might have satisfied a . Between these two dishes were all the which high tea from tea, and on the quality of which the success of the meal really depends; hot pikelets, hot crumpets, hot toast, with tomatoes, raisin-bread, current-bread, seed-cake, , home-made marmalade and home-made jams. The repast occupied over an hour, and even then not a quarter of the food was consumed. Surrounded by all that good fare and good-will, with the Alderman on her left, Henry on her right, and a bright fire in front of her, Anna quickly caught the gaiety of the others. She forgot everything but the gladness of reunion, the joy of the moment, the comfort of the house. Conversation was busy with the doings of the Suttons at Port Erin after Anna and Henry had left. A listener would have caught fragments like this:—'You know such-and-such a point.... No, not there, over the hill. Well, we hired a carriage and drove.... The weather was simply.... Tom Kelly said he'd never.... And that little guard on the railway came all the way down to the steamer.... Did you see anything in the "Signal" about the actress being drowned? Oh! It was sad. We saw the just after.... Beatrice, will you ?'
 
'Wasn't it terrible about Titus Price?' Beatrice exclaimed.
 
'Eh, my!' sighed Mrs. Sutton, glancing at Anna. 'You can never tell what's going to happen next. I'm always afraid to go away for fear of something happening.'
 
A silence followed. When tea was finished Beatrice was taken away by her mother to write the letters concerning the immediate resumption of sewing-meetings, and for a little time Anna was left in the drawing-room alone with the two men, who began to talk about the affairs of the Prices. It appeared that Mr. Sutton had been asked to become trustee for the under a deed of arrangement, and that he had hopes of being able to sell the business as a going concern. In the meantime it would need careful management.
 
'Will Willie Price manage it?' Anna inquired. The question seemed to divert Henry and the Alderman, to afford them a contemptuous and somewhat inimical amusement at the expense of Willie.
 
'No,' said the Alderman, quietly, but emphatically.
 
'Master William is fairly good on the works,' said Henry; 'but in the office, I imagine, he is worse than useless.'
 
Grieved and confused, Anna down and moved a hassock in order to hide her face. The attitude of these men to Willie Price, that victim of circumstances and of his own , wounded Anna inexpressibly. She perceived that they could see in him only a defaulting , that his misfortune made no appeal to their charity. She wondered that men so warm-hearted and kind in some relations could be so hard in others.
 
'I had a talk with your father at the creditors' meeting yesterday,' said the Alderman. 'You won't lose much. Of course you've got a preferential claim for six months' rent.' He said this , as though it would give satisfaction. Anna did not know what a preferential claim might be, nor was she aware of any creditors' meeting. She wished that she might lose as much as possible—hundreds of pounds. She was relieved when Beatrice swept in, her mother following.
 
'Now, your worship,' said Beatrice to her father, 'seven stamps for these letters, please.' Anna glanced up inquiringly on hearing the form of address. 'You don't mean to say that you didn't know that father is going to be mayor this year?' Beatrice asked, as if shocked at this ignorance of affairs. 'Yes, it was all settled rather late, wasn't it, dad? And the mayor-elect pretends not to care much, but actually he is filled with pride, isn't he, dad? As for the mayoress——?'
 
'Eh, Bee!' Mrs. Sutton stopped her, smiling; 'you'll tumble over that tongue of yours some day.'
 
'Mother said I wasn't to mention it,' said Beatrice, 'lest you should think we were putting on airs.'
 
', not I!' Mrs. Sutton protested. 'I said no such thing. Anna knows us too well for that. But I'm not so set up with this mayor business as some people will think I am.'
 
'Or as Beatrice is,' Mynors added.
 
At half-past eight, and again at nine, Anna said that she must go home; but the Suttons, now absorbed in the topic of the mayoralty, their secret preoccupation, would not spoil the talk which had ensued by letting the lovers depart. It was nearly half-past nine before Anna and Henry stood on the pavement outside, and Beatrice, after farewells, had shut the door.
 
'Let us just walk round by the Farm,' Henry pleaded. 'It won't take more than a quarter of an hour or so.'
 
She agreed dutifully. The ran at right angles to Trafalgar Road, past a colliery whose engine-fires glowed in the dark, moonless, autumn night, and then across a field. They stood on a near the old farmstead, that extraordinary and pathetic survival of a vanished agriculture. Immediately in front of them stretched acres of burning ironstone—a vast tremulous carpet of flame woven in red, purple, and strange greens. Beyond were the skeleton-like of pit-heads, and the solid forms of furnace and chimney-shaft. In the distance a canal reflected the gigantic illuminations of Cauldon Bar Ironworks. It was a scene mysterious and romantic enough to the of love, but Anna felt cold, , and of vague sorrows. 'Why am I so?' she asked herself, and tried in vain to shake off the mood.
 
'What will Willie Price do if the business is sold?' she questioned Mynors suddenly.
 
'Surely,' he said to her, 'you aren't still worrying about that misfortune. I wish you had never gone near the inquest; the thing seems to have got on your mind.'
 
'Oh, no!' she protested, with an air of cheerfulness. 'But I was just wondering.'
 
'Well, Willie will have to do the best he can. Get a place somewhere, I suppose. It won't be much, at the best.'
 
Had he guessed what perhaps hung on that answer, Mynors might have given it in a tone less callous and perfunctory. Could he have seen the tightening of her lips, he might even afterwards have repaired his error by some voluntary assurance that Willie Price should be watched over with a eye and protected with a strong arm. But how was he to know that in misprizing Willie Price before her, he was misprizing a child to its mother? He had done something for Willie Price, and considered that he had done enough. His thoughts, moreover, were on other matters.
 
'Do you remember that day we went up to the park?' he murmured fondly; 'that Sunday? I have never told you that that evening I came out of after the first , when I noticed you weren't there, and walked up past your house. I couldn't help it. Something drew me. I nearly called in to see you. Then I thought I had better not.'
 
'I saw you,' she said calmly. His warmth made her feel sad. 'I saw you stop at the gate.'
 
'You did? But you weren't at the window?'
 
'I saw you through the glass of the front-door.' Her voice grew fainter, more reluctant.
 
'Then you were watching?' In the dark he seized her with such violence, and kissed her so , that she was startled out of herself.
 
'Oh! Henry!' she exclaimed.
 
'Call me ,' he , his arm still round her waist; 'I want you to call me Harry. No one else does or ever has done, and no one shall, now.'
 
'Harry,' she said , her mind to a positive determination. She must please him, and she said it again: 'Harry; yes, it has a nice sound.'
 
Ephraim sat reading the 'Signal' in the parlour when she arrived home at five minutes to ten. then with ideas of duty, , and , she had an impulse to attempt a with her father.
 
'Good-night, father,' she said, 'I hope I've not kept you up.'
 
He was deaf.
 
She went to bed resigned; sad, but not gloomy. It was not for nothing that during all her life she had been accustomed to infelicity. Experience had taught her this: to be the mistress of herself. She knew that she could face any fact—even the fact of her dispassionate under Mynors' . It was on the firm, almost rapturous resolve to succour Willie Price, if need be, that she fell asleep.
 
The engagement, which had hitherto been kept private, became the theme of universal gossip immediately upon the return of the Suttons from the of Man. Two words let fall by Beatrice in the St. Luke's covered market on Saturday morning had increased and multiplied till the whole town echoed with the news. Anna's private fortune rose as high as a quarter of a million. As for Henry Mynors, it was said that Henry Mynors knew what he was about. After all, he was like the rest. Money, money! Of course it was inconceivable that a fine, prosperous figure of a man, such as Mynors, would have made up to her, if she had not been simply rolling in money. Well, there was one thing to be said for young Mynors, he would put money to good use; you might rely he would not it up same as it had been up. However, the more saved, the more for young Mynors, so he needn't . It was to be hoped he would make her dress herself a bit better—though indeed it hadn't been her fault she went about so shabby; the old skinflint would never allow her a penny of her own. So tongues wagged.
 
The first Sunday was a for Anna, both at school and at chapel. 'Well, I never!' seemed to be written like a note of on every brow; the monotony of the congratulations her as much as her involuntary efforts to grasp what each speaker had left unsaid of , , envy or . Even the people in the shops, during the next few days, could not serve her without direct and curious reference to her private affairs. The general opinion that she was a cold and bloodless creature was strengthened by her attitude at this period. But the which she displayed was neither affected nor due to an excessive diffidence. As she seemed, so she felt. She often wondered what would have happened to her if that vague 'something' between Henry and Beatrice, to which Beatrice had confessed, had ever taken definite shape.
 
'Hancock came back from Lancashire last night,' said Mynors, when he arrived at Manor Terrace on the next Saturday afternoon. Ephraim was in the room, and Henry, evidently and , addressed both him and Anna.
 
'Is Hancock the commercial traveller?' Anna asked. She knew that Hancock was the commercial traveller, but she experienced a nervous compulsion to make idle remarks in order to hide the of between her father and herself.
 
'Yes,' said Mynors; 'he's had a magnificent journey.'
 
'How much?' asked the .
 
Henry named the amount of orders taken in a fortnight's journey.
 
'Humph!' the miser ejaculated. 'That's better than a bat in the eye with a burnt stick.' From him, this was the superlative of praise. 'You're making good money at any rate?'
 
'We are,' said Mynors.
 
'That reminds me,' Ephraim remarked gruffly. 'When dost think o' getting ? I'm not much for long engagements, and so I tell ye.' He threw a cold glance sideways at Anna. The idea her heart like a stab: 'He wants to get me out of the house!'
 
'Well,' said Mynors, surprised at the question and the tone, and, looking at Anna as if for an explanation: 'I had scarcely thought of that. What does Anna say?'
 
'I don't know,' she murmured; and then, more bravely, in a louder voice, and with a smile: 'The sooner the better.' She thought, in her bitter and painful resentment: 'If he wants me to go, go I will.'
 
Henry tactfully passed on to another phase of the subject: 'I met Mr. Sutton yesterday, and he was telling me of Price's house up at Toft End. It belonged to Mr. Price, but of course it was mortgaged up to the hilt. The mortgagees have taken possession, and Mr. Sutton said it would be to let cheap at Christmas. Of course Willie and old Sarah Vodrey, the

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