‘Yes, sir, we left the place, an’ I haven’t heard o’ him this nine year, but I knowed he wasn’t dead.’

‘How did you know that, Jen?’

’Because, sir, when God A’mighty sees fit that he should die, I’ll be free o’ him, that’s all.’

‘And aren’t you going to marry?’

‘Noae, sir.  Johnnie an’ me has talked it over, an’ he says as how he’ll wait till such time as I’m free.  An’ I didn’t say “no” to him, fur when one knows what it is to love true, sir, one knows well it’s noae use to say as this thing’s best or t’other, but just it’s like being taken up like a leaf by the wind an’ moved whether one will or no.  There’s just this diff’rence betwixt true love an’ the common kind—­the common kind o’ love moves ye i’ the wrong way, an’ true love i’ the right; fur it’s a true word the blessed St. John said when he said that love is God.’

‘Did St. John say that?’ said Skelton.

‘Yes, sir, I read it to mother just afore she died.  An’ Johnnie’s gone across the sea, sir, wi’ his mother; he got a right good chance to better hisself, an’ I made him go.  His ship sailed the day after Christmas; an’ I said, “Johnnie, I’ll bide here, an’ God ’ull take care o’ me as well as ye could yerself;” an’ I said, “Johnnie, I’ll pray every day, night an’ morning, that if ye can forget me, ye will; for if ye can forget, then yer love’s not o’ the right sort, as I could take, or God ’ud want ye to give; and if ye can’t forget, then there’s nowt to say but as I’ll bide here.”  An’ I said, sir, as he munna think as loving him made me sad, fur I was a big sight happier to love him, if he forgets or if he comes again.’

‘Will you live here; Jen, where the neighbours distrust you?’

’It ‘ud just be the same any other place, sir, an’ here I can work i’ the fields, spring and harvest, an’ earn my own bread.  I know the fields, sir, an’ the hills—­they’s like friends to me now, an’ I knows the dumb things about, an’ they all knows me.  It’s a sight o’ help one can get, sir, when one’s down wi’ the sorrow o’ all the world lying on the heart, to have a kind look an’ a word wi’ the dogs an’ cows when they comes down the hills fur the milking.  An’ the children they mostly lets come to me now, though they kep ’em from me at first.

Then he told her that he had come a long way on purpose to see if he could help her; that he felt ashamed of having listened to her story, and that it would give him happiness in some way or other to make her life more easy.  He explained that he had a great deal of money and many friends, and could easily give her anything that these could procure.  In saying this he did not disguise from himself for a moment that his motive was mixed, and that he desired to gain some hold over her, such as benevolence could give, that he might further examine the problem of her extraordinary misfortune.  Even as he spoke he marvelled at the strength of his respect for her, which could so outweigh his own interest as to make it impossible that he should interfere in her affairs otherwise than with all deference, as if she were a lady.