Again after a while, ‘I says to her, “Mrs Salter, an’ aren’t ye a bit afraid o’ being kilt?” but she cries out to me, “Oh, you’ve not had no children, or ye wouldn’t know what it was to be afraid. They’re as dear to me one as the t’other,” she says, all a-cryin’ still, “they’ve lain in my arms, an’ I’ve fed ’em from my breast; they’re my lad an’ my girl, though t’ world cries shame on ’em; an’ I’d sooner be kilt mysel’ than do nought to help ’em now.” An’ I says to her, “_Go_, then, Mrs Salter, though I don’t understan’ what ye mean; go then, if ye must, an’ t’ Lord be wid’ ye as ye go!” an’ she seemed to rush past me, she was in such a takin’; an’ she went down t’ river path, an’ away into t’ night. I hope as she’ll come to no harm, though I be skeared, for she seem so alone i’ t’ darkness, wi’ no one near to help. She be a good mother, she be, poor Jenny Salter, though t’ lass an’ t’ lad have not done well by her.’ * * * * * The voices had died away along the path, and the sound of the footsteps too had died away, when the boy, who had been prostrate upon the grass beneath, rose up in the darkness, and sat upon the ground. There was no light by which his features could be seen, or that light might have shone upon an altered face. He only knew that his eyes were full of tears, and that through that blindness there shone a newer life. With steady hands he undid the bandage he had tied, and arranged his comforter once more round his neck--his life should have steadier purposes in future than that of obeying and following his own insanity. With tearful eyes, but without any articulate confession, he let himself kneel for an instant on the grass; and, then, with a heart full of the strength that turns remorse to penitence, he prepared to follow his mother to the town. It should not be in vain--oh! it should not be in vain--that he had heard those words which he felt were meant for him. It might yet be possible to find his mother in the darkness; and when he had found her he would stay with her. No doubt it would have been better if poor Jenny could have had her son by her side during her lonely walk in the night-time, but nearly an hour had passed now since her light footsteps made soft echoes on the path between the river and the town. She had gone on through darkness, looking straight in front of her, as if her glance could embrace the distant city, with a far more definite purpose than might have been imagined from her slight figure, and fixed, straining eyes. The darkness was nothing, pain and weariness were nothing, the throbbing of the bruise on her head, or the loneliness of night, she might remember these things when they were over, but at present they were scarcely able to touch her consciousness. In one way or another she would save her children; after that it would not matter what became of her. CHAPTER XXXI DRESSING FOR DINNER