Somewhat late in the evening the nurse asked Inman if he would keep an eye on his wife and child for a few minutes as Keturah was in the village, and he found an opportunity he had been seeking. They were both asleep when he entered the room, the child’s head resting in the hollow of the mother’s arm where she had asked for it to be laid. The most dangerous crisis was past and the doctor now thought that Nancy would pull through. Inman just glanced at the pair, and though emotion shone in his eyes it was not that of tenderness. When he had satisfied himself that his wife’s slumber was real he bestowed no further thought upon her, but quietly mounted a chair and lifted down his bag from the top of the cupboard and placed it on the dark landing, whence he removed it to the parlour when the nurse relieved him a few minutes later. Keturah had not returned and the transaction had passed unobserved by anyone. Inman smiled his self-congratulations as he slung the bag over the moulding of the old-fashioned bookcase, where it raised a cloud of dust that assured him the place of concealment was well-chosen. When Keturah came hurrying in he was standing in the kitchen with his back to the fire. Baldwin looked up when supper was over. He had not tasted drink that day and his mood had changed since morning. “Maniwel’s got that job we’ve been after up at Far Tarn,” he began when Inman accepted his suggestion that they should return to the office. “Has he?” Inman replied indifferently. Baldwin surveyed him with something of his old fierceness; and the look of premature superciliousness that he thought he saw in his foreman’s face combined with the tone of contemptuous unconcern, led to a result which neither man had anticipated a moment before. “I’ll do without your brass,” he said in one of his old gusts of anger that quickly brought Inman to his senses again. “It’s plain to see who’s to be t’ boss when you’ve ’commodated me wi’ your five hundred, for you’re holding your head already, both i’ t’ house and t’ shop, as if you were gaffer. You may take yourself off to another market, young man, and as soon as you like. There’s been naught but mischief i’ t’ place ever sin’ you set your foot in’t, and I’ll try if getting rid o’ t’ Jonah’ll save t’ ship. If it doesn’t we can but sink and ha’ done wi’t.” It would be difficult to say which of the two men was the more surprised by this deliverance. Baldwin had invited Inman to accompany him to the office with the express object of accepting the unwelcome terms. He had, indeed, dwelt upon the alternatives so long that the terms had almost ceased to be unwelcome, and he had persuaded himself that with this relief he would soon be able to find his feet again, when it would be no great matter to get rid of the yoke that was so galling to his pride, and consign the bill of sale to those blazes that were so often on his tongue.