They were drawing near the station, and she spoke fast, partly from that reason, partly to make her attack the more potent, and to leave him no time to think. But he answered her a great deal more readily than she had expected. “Is it fair upon a girl to expect her to make up for all that?” he asked. “Mother, I ask myself sometimes, if she gave up her own life for me as I have done for her--no, not altogether for her--could I make it up to her? Is it fair or just to expect it? Life means a great deal, after all--more than just what you call happiness. You will think I am very hard-hearted; but, do you know, it almost appears to me sometimes as if a man could get on better without happiness, if he had plenty of work to do, than he could without the work, with only the happiness to comfort him. Is it blasphemy, mother? Even if it is, you will not be too hard upon me.” Mrs Mitford paused a little to think over her answer; and perhaps anybody who takes an interest in her will be shocked to hear that she was rather--glad--half-glad--with a kind of relief at her heart. “John,” she said, “I don’t know what to say. I am--sorry--you have found it out, my dear. Oh, I am very sorry you have found it out--for it is hard; but, do you know, I fear it is true.” “I wonder how my mother found it out,” he said, looking down upon her with that strange surprise which moves a child when it suddenly suspects some unthought-of conflict in the settled immovable life which it has been familiar with all its days, and accepted as an eternal reality. He had propounded his theory as the very worst and very saddest discovery in existence, and lo! she had accepted it as a truism. It bewildered John so that he could not add another word. “One finds everything out if one lives long enough,” she said, hastily, with a nervous smile. “And, my dear, this is what I always thought--this is why I always disapproved of this bank scheme. You were hurried into it without time to think. And now that you find it does not answer, oh, my boy, what is to be done? You should not lose any time, John. You should come to an understanding with Mr Crediton and Kate----” Heavy as his heart was, John could not but smile. “You go so fast, mother dear, that you take away my breath.” “So fast! what can be too fast, when you are unhappy, my dear? One can see at a glance that you are unhappy. Oh, John, come back! Believe me, my own boy, the only comfort is doing God’s work; everything else is unsatisfactory. Oh, my dear, come home! If I but saw you taking to the parish work, and coming back to your own life, I should care for nothing more--nothing more in this world.” “Softly, softly,” said John. “My dear mother, I was not thinking of the parish work--far, very far from it. I cannot tell you what I was thinking of. I may find what I want in the bank after all. Here is the train, and James waiting for you with the phaeton. Let me put you in before I go away.”