And he held out his hand with a boyish kindness. The old woman looked at them both in a bewildered way. Her face, with its long chin and powerful nose, was blanched and drawn, her grey hair straggling from under her worn black-ribboned cap; and her black dress had a neglected air, which drew George's attention. Mary Batchelor, so long as he remembered her, whether as his old nurse, or in later days as the Bible-woman of the village, had always been remarkable for a peculiar dignity and neatness. "Mary, is there anything wrong?" he asked her, holding her hand. "Coom yer ways in," said the old woman, grasping his arm, and taking no notice of Letty. "He's gone--he'll not freeten nobody--he wor here three days afore they buried him. I could no let him go--but it's three weeks now sen they put him away." "Why, Mary, what is it? Not _James_!--not your son!" said George, letting her guide him into the cottage. "Aye, it's James--it's my son," she repeated drearily. "Will yer be takkin a cheer--an perhaps"--she looked round uncertainly, first at Letty, then at the wet floor where she had been feebly scrubbing--"perhaps the leddy ull be sittin down. I'm nobbut in a muddle. But I don't seem to get forard wi my work a mornins--not sen they put im away." And she dropped into a chair herself, with a long sigh--forgetting her visitors apparently--her large and bony hands, scarred with their life's work, lying along her knees. George stood beside her silent a moment. "I hardly like to say I hadn't heard," he said at last, gently. "You'll think I _ought_ to have heard. But I didn't know. I have been in town and very busy." "Aye," said Mary, without looking up, "aye, an yer've been gettin married. I knew as yer didn't mean nothin onkind." Then she stopped again--till suddenly, with a furtive gesture, she raised her apron, and drew it across her eyes, which had the look of perennial tears. On the other side of the cottage meanwhile a boy of about fourteen was sitting. He had just done his afternoon's wash, and was resting himself by the fire, enjoying a thumbed football almanac. He had not risen when the visitors entered, and while his grandmother was speaking his lips still moved dumbly, as he went on adding up the football scores. He was a sickly, rather repulsive lad with a callous expression. "Let me wait outside, George," said Letty, hurriedly. Some instinct in her shrank from the poor mother and her story. But George begged her to stay, and she sat down nervously by the door, trying to protect her pretty skirt from the wet boards. "Will you tell me how it was?" said George, sitting down himself in front of the bowed mother, and bending towards her. "Was it in the pit? Jamie wasn't one of our men, I know. Wasn't it for Mr. Morrison he worked?" Mrs. Batchelor made a sign of assent. Then she raised her head quickly, and a flash of some passionate convulsion passed through her face.