Time crept on, slow but inexorable. She longed, as she had never longed before for anything, for the courage to go to the farmhouse and ask tidings of Julia. But her fear was greater than her longing, and she roamed at random in a circle, never losing sight of the house, but not daring to approach it or be seen from its windows. She dreaded what might be the news to greet her there. She feared her own face, with its haggard lines of sleeplessness and anxious watching. At last, from the very depths of her misery, she plucked the heart of despairing hope, and made for the farm. The farm labourers and country folk she met stared after her. Even their bovine understandings were troubled by her scared face. She scarcely saw them, or anything but the farmhouse, which drew her now with an influence as strong as its repulsion had been an hour ago. She entered the house by the back door, and made straight for the sitting-room. Mrs. Mountain was there, arranging a tray, on which were tea and jam and other homely luxuries. She wore her ordinary look of placid contentment, and at the sight of her quiet face Mrs. Rusker dropped panting, with a vague unformulated feeling of relief, into a chair. ‘Sakes alive! Whativer is the matter?’ demanded Mrs. Mountain. ‘Julia!’ panted the visitor. ‘How’s Julia?’ ‘Why,’ said Mrs. Mountain, ‘how should her be?’ ‘Is she awake yet?’ asked Mrs. Jenny, more calmly. ‘No. Her was sleepin’ when I seed her, jist for a minute, a hour ago. I’m jist goin’ upstairs wi’ some breakfast for her. Well, I declare, yo’ look as pale as a ghost. What’s the matter with you?’ ‘Oh, I’ve passed a miserable night,’ said Mrs. Jenny, in unconscious quotation from her favourite poet. ‘I couldn’t sleep a-thinkin’ o’ Julia.’ ‘Well, then, you do look poorly,’ said her hostess, with all her motherly heart warmed by this solicitude for her daughter. ‘Why, theer’s no cause to fret i’ that way. To be sure, Samson might ha’ knowed better than to blunder such a thing as that right out, but, then, he’s a man, and that’d account for a’most anything. Married life might teach ‘em better, you’d think, and yet after nigh on forty year on it he knows no more about women folk than any bachelor i’ Barfield. Theer, tek your bonnet off, an’ I’ll gi’ ye a cup o’ tay, an’ then you can goo upstairs wi’ me and see the wench.’ Mrs. Jenny gratefully accepted the proffered tea, and, having drunk it, much to her inward refreshment, accompanied Mrs. Mountain upstairs. As the latter had said, the girl was sleeping still, and Mrs. Busker saw that her position had not changed by a hair’s breadth. She lay like a carven statue, her face marble white in the clear morning light.