‘You must come again, dear Mrs. Twycott. There is no time o’ day for taking the air like this.’ It grew lighter and lighter. The sparrows became busy in the streets, and the city waxed denser around them. When they approached the river it was day, and on the bridge they beheld the full blaze of morning sunlight in the direction of St. Paul’s, the river glistening towards it, and not a craft stirring. Near Covent Garden he put her into a cab, and they parted, looking into each other’s faces like the very old friends they were. She reached home without adventure, limped to the door, and let herself in with her latch-key unseen. The air and Sam’s presence had revived her: her cheeks were quite pink—almost beautiful. She had something to live for in addition to her son. A woman of pure instincts, she knew there had been nothing really wrong in the journey, but supposed it conventionally to be very wrong indeed. Soon, however, she gave way to the temptation of going with him again, and on this occasion their conversation was distinctly tender, and Sam said he never should forget her, notwithstanding that she had served him rather badly at one time. After much hesitation he told her of a plan it was in his power to carry out, and one he should like to take in hand, since he did not care for London work: it was to set up as a master greengrocer down at Aldbrickham, the county-town of their native place. He knew of an opening—a shop kept by aged people who wished to retire. ‘And why don’t you do it, then, Sam?’ she asked with a slight heartsinking. ‘Because I’m not sure if—you’d join me. I know you wouldn’t—couldn’t! Such a lady as ye’ve been so long, you couldn’t be a wife to a man like me.’ ‘I hardly suppose I could!’ she assented, also frightened at the idea. ‘If you could,’ he said eagerly, ‘you’d on’y have to sit in the back parlour and look through the glass partition when I was away sometimes—just to keep an eye on things. The lameness wouldn’t hinder that . . . I’d keep you as genteel as ever I could, dear Sophy—if I might think of it!’ he pleaded. ‘Sam, I’ll be frank,’ she said, putting her hand on his. ‘If it were only myself I would do it, and gladly, though everything I possess would be lost to me by marrying again.’ ‘I don’t mind that! It’s more independent.’ ‘That’s good of you, dear, dear Sam. But there’s something else. I have a son . . . I almost fancy when I am miserable sometimes that he is not really mine, but one I hold in trust for my late husband. He seems to belong so little to me personally, so entirely to his dead father. He is so much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough to be his mother . . . Well, he would have to be told.’ ‘Yes. Unquestionably.’ Sam saw her thought and her fear. ‘Still, you can do as you like, Sophy—Mrs. Twycott,’ he added. ‘It is not you who are the child, but he.’