One or two old women--old in fact if not in years, incapacitated by the factory, for the factory--had been at the graveside and were going home with Phoebe, and it was natural that John should hold out his hand to Barraclough, this unexpected, this so self-sacrificing sympathizer and that they should fall into step as they moved away together. “Man, I had to come. I’m that sorry for thee. Coming doan’t mean much for sure, but--” “It means a day’s wages, choose how,” said John, who knew that Barraclough was not of the few who had been granted an hour’s leave to come. Barraclough nodded. “And a fine, an’ all,” he said, “but that all counts somehow. Seems to me if it weren’t costing me summat, it u’d not be the same relief it is to my feelings. I didna come for thy sake, I came to please masel’, selfish like. I had to get away from yond damned place that murdered her. I couldna’ stand the sight o’ it to-day.” “Murdered her!” said John. He had, no doubt, used that word in thought, but it had seemed to him audacious, a thought to be forbidden utterance. And here, shaming him for his mildness was one, an outsider, a stranger, who, untouched intimately by Annie’s death, yet spoke of it outright as murder. John felt that he was failing Annie, that he had not risen to his occasion, that it was this other, this fine spirit, who could not “stand the sight” of the factory on the day of her funeral, who had risen to the occasion more worthily than John, who was Annie’s husband. “Aye,” he said somberly, “it was murder.” “You never doubted that, surely,” said Barraclough. “Oh,” said John, “when a woman dies in childbirth--” “Aye, but fair treated women don’t. What art doing now? I mean for the rest of the day. Looking at it from my point of view, I might as well tak’ the chance to get out o’ sight o’ yond hell-spot. I’m going on moors for a breath of air. Wilt come? Better nor settin’ to hoam brooding, tha’ knows.” His point was simply to get John in his emotional crisis to himself, but luck was with him in his proposal further than he knew. For John, the moors were a reminder of Annie at her sunniest, but for the moment all that he was thinking of was that strange instinct for the sympathetic stranger rather than for the sympathy, too poignant to be borne, of his mother. And he did not wish to see his sons that day. “‘Tis better nor brooding,” he agreed, and went. There was virtue, he thought, in talking. Phoebe was all reserve and action, and on this which resolved itself into a day off from the factory, she would be very active in her house. He was quite sure that he did not want to go home. Exercise for his legs, air for his lungs and the conversation, comprehending but naturally not too intimate, of this kindly stranger--these were the things to get him through the day. But the conversation of Mr. Barraclough was not calculated to be an anodyne.