The woman glanced at the clock. The time had slipped by; it was nearly eight. “He’ll guess where I’ve been,” she said. “What will you tell him?” the girl asked. “Seems to me,” answered the woman, “I may as well tell him the truth: that I’ve had a bit of a clack with you. That you will do all you can to help him. That’s right, isn’t it?” The girl nodded. The woman took the girl’s face in her two hands. “Not sure you’re not getting the best of it,” she said. “I often used to lie awake beside my man, and wish I could always think of him as he was when I first met him: brave and handsome, with his loving ways and his kind heart. I saw him again when he lay dead, and all my love came back to me. A girl thinks, when she marries, that she’s won a lover. More often she finds that she’s lost him. It seems to me sometimes that it’s only dreams that last. “Don’t bother to come down,” she said. “I’ll let myself out.” She closed the door softly behind her. The girl was still kneeling. CHAPTER XII Mrs. Strong’nth’arm had not spoken figuratively when she had told Betty that there were times when she did not know her own son. As a child, there had always been, to her, something mysterious about him; a gravity, a wisdom beyond his years. There had been, with him, no period of fun and frolic that she might have shared in; no mischievousness for her to scold while loving him the more for it; no helplessness to make appeal to her. From the day when he could crawl his self-reliance had caused her secret tears. He never came to her for comfort or protection. Beyond providing for his bodily wants she was no use to him. She had thought his father’s death would draw him to her, making him more dependent on her. But instead there had grown up around him a strange aloofness that hid him still further from her eyes. For her labour and sacrifice, she knew that he was grateful; that he would never rest satisfied till he had rewarded her. He respected her, was always kind and thoughtful--even loved her in a way; she felt that. In the serving world, where she had passed her girlhood, it was not uncommon for good and faithful servants to be regarded in the same way: with honour and affection. At first the difference between him and all other boys she had ever known or heard of had been her daily cross. She recalled how eagerly he had welcomed his father’s offer to teach him to read--how it was he who had kept his father up to the mark. At six years old he had taught himself to write. He had never cared for play. He was going to be a scholar, a dreamer--some sort of crank or another. She had no use for cranks. They earned but poverty and the world’s contempt. Why couldn’t he be like other lads, differing from them only by being cleverer and stronger? It was that had been her prayer.