The words did not mean pain. I had a feeling of being set free from bondage. So often I had felt that I couldn't break loose from Walter's mastery; yet here was I loose, and the mastery gone. I had so feared to meet him; yet now we had met, and he had not his old power over me. I did not know whether he was changed or I was changed; but either way I knew it was an answer to prayer. For I had prayed. All through the journey to Bristol I was feeling so glad and thankful, so happy to be free. It was a long journey. The train stopped at pretty nearly every station, and people got in and out. All of them were civil to me; and one old woman took me under her care, begging me to eat a lot of rich plum-cake. But I had been well supplied with sandwiches and cake before I left Deane Rectory. Bristol station was reached at last; and an uncommon big bustling place it seemed to be, different as could be from Claxton. I felt very lone and strange, till I caught sight of Mary's face on the platform; and then it was all right. "Are you ready for a good walk, Kitty?" she asked. I said "Yes," for I was cramped with long sitting. So we settled about having my box sent, and Mary and I started off. We could have done a good part of the way by tram, if we'd been minded; but I liked the walk, and there was no harm in saving a few pence. The rooms Mary had taken for my mother and herself were not actually near the part that had been her girlhood's home; not down in Bristol, but higher up in Redland. Mary had feared the narrow streets and noise of Bristol for my mother. Still she had found out all her old friends, and had had lots of kindness from them, as well as getting plenty of work. She told me this as we toiled up one of the steep hills out of Bristol, with houses on both sides, and houses around everywhere. "I shouldn't like to live down there," I said. "No; it isn't as if you'd been used to the place always," Mary answered. Then I asked, "Will mother be pleased to see me?" "I can't tell yet, but I hope so, Kitty. She seemed glad this morning, when I told her you were coming." "She hasn't ever written to me," I said. "No; she has written to nobody. She doesn't seem able. But she keeps the rooms nice, so as to leave me free for work; and sometimes she works too." "I'm sure I can never thank you enough for staying with her all this time," I said. "I couldn't have thought you'd have been able." "Things are changed," Mary said. I didn't know what she meant. I looked for more, but she wouldn't speak. So I said— "How soon will mother and I have to go back to Claxton?" "Do you wish very much to go?" she asked. "I don't know. Yes," I said. "Claxton is our home." And yet I felt it would be sad, with everything so different. "Could Claxton be home to you again, I wonder?" says she. "In another house, and without your father?" "Mother wouldn't like to live anywhere else," I said. "Yes; she will be content with whatever is decided."