“Oh, ye don’t know! Heavens o’ happiness, ye tell us, isn’t too much for us, and see the hell o’ misery that comes instead! All the things you’re going to do for us, you in your pride ... but the little that will fit us, all we ask o’ ye, no, no!... Ay, ye’re away forgetting, busy and forgetting all the time; if this turn misses o’ happiness, the next’ll do it; and what is it that we ask in our hearts? A bite and sup, a hearth and a babe and a kiss. I wed ye unthinking, Arthur--ay, ye know I did--but I ha’ thought since--the time women do think, God help ’em! You never dazzled me wi’ your talk o’ riches, never; but the little a woman asks is too much for a man to give, it seems. I wonder what you’d ha’ thought if you’d heard Sally before she took the draught!... Courting again, she was, with Jim, o’ spring evenings down the deans (forgive me, lass!), and him with her hair about his neck and suchlike, and sometimes her reckoning to be the man and toying wi’ him and kissing him here and there, as lads kiss lasses, and all their tricks and babble.... Ay!” she cried, excitedly, “you’ve brought it all back to me now, all that I’ve held away for days that I might nurse and watch and tend the bairn and be a bit o’ use!... And when they were wed, what more did she ask than just that? Would a golden crown ha’ suited her better? Nay, nay! It’s less we get after we’re wed. Happen men’ll know more of it i’ th’ next world, for they know little enough i’ this.--But go your way, Arthur; I’ve told ye mine.” He had not once lifted his head; he did not do so now. “I’m making my way yours, if you’ll go it with me,” he said in a low voice. “Ay, I don’t doubt this has shaken you all up a bit, but men soon get over it,” she replied. “Well, you’ve a right to say what you will, and I’ll not tell you what’s shaken me; but, Cicely, little or much, I’m here to offer you all you ask.” “Then all I ask, Arthur, is that you leave me. What use am I in this house if I begin to think? You’ve brought me another of ’em, too; then keep away from me, lest I break down. I’ll do the best I can.” Sad and broken-spirited, he gazed down at the cradle. “Yes, I’ll go,” he said. “But I’d hoped you’d see in me a man you haven’t known yet, humbled, ay, and even his body in danger. I’m no king of Back o’ th’ Mooin now; when I’ve done what I’m going to do both sides will hunt me. I’d hoped, too, we might help one another, you and I.” She began to tremble. “What is it, Arthur?” she asked quickly. “Don’t ask me, except that this is my finish with it. I’ll tell you what it is I offer you now. All’s closing in, and they won’t stop at this; and I offer you danger for a portion, and not so much as a roof to your head it may be, and it may be, Cicely, just the same lot as hers stretched on the bed yonder. But a new man goes with it, Cis----”