She stood quietly wiping a tear now and then, and he beside her turning his hand round and round in his breeches pocket. At last he pulled the hand out and held it towards her: there was a silver coin in it. “Ye’d best take it,” said he sheepishly. “I ’ad my week’s wage to-day, though they _’ave_ a-turned me off, and I can spare it nicely. It’ll get ye a bed and a bit o’ supper anyways.” Her face flushed and her lip quivered again. But she took it. “Ye’re very kind,” said she. “I ought to thank ye, I’m sure. If mother was alive...” Her voice shook, and she didn’t finish the sentence. He stepped to the hearth and took up her wretched little jacket that had lain there a-drying, handing it to her clumsily. Her last words echoed in his ears. She took the jacket, and pushed her poor, thin arms into its shrunken sleeves; it was damp still, and it would not meet, even across her narrow chest. “The luck’ll turn,” he repeated awkwardly. “It allers do turn—one way or t’other. Ye must try for work again at Hoo, yonder. There’s another factory there.” “Seems as though God A’mighty did ought to give me another chance,” she said with a sigh, “if it were on’y for this. For I shan’t be able to pay ye back else.” He had opened the cranky door, and they had passed out into the moonlit frostiness. “Never think o’ that,” said he. “I shall though,” she declared. “Ye must show me your ’ome, so as I shall know where to find ye to pay it back agin—when I do get work.” “My ’ome!” echoed he. And he turned and looked at the deserted cottage with its closed, silent windows. From the chimney a faint line of smoke from the remnants of the fire that he had lit was stealing up straight into the calm, cold air—ascending steadily, like incense, into the sky. He caught his breath. “This’d be the best place,” he said. “I’ll come ’ere next Saturday night and see if ye’re anywheres about. I’d like to ’ear ’ow ye was a-gettin’ on, but I don’t want the money.” They had crossed the garden by this time, and stood at the gate. “I shan’t rest till I can bring it ye though,” said she. “I ’aven’t never borrowed from nobody afore. That was why ... _you know_...! P’r’aps I didn’t ought to ha’ took it now. But it seemed as though ... well, it seemed as though, if yer pulled me out o’ the water, I’d _got_ to keep the life in me! I couldn’t ha’ felt like taking it from no one else, I think. But there, ye’re a good sort, and I’ll owe it to you. But I’ll pay you—s’elp me God.” She shoved the gate open and went out into the road, he following. “A good sort!” He “a good sort!” An hour ago he would ... no, not have _laughed_; he would have sworn, to say the very least of it, at any one who had dared to say such a thing; for he would have known they meant it as an insult. But he neither laughed nor swore at this woman. He simply stood still and looked at her. The clock in the church steeple up the stream struck ten.