All sparkle of light had vanished from the snow; the sky had now grown colder than the land, and in the north a wind was rising. He walked fast to keep the heat in his limbs. He passed the last cottages of Mainstone and came into the length of Roman road which he and George had so often travelled at night. The wind set up a faint and mournful singing in the telegraph wires. The winter night descended. No human shape was to be seen on the long white road but that of Abner and another smaller figure that approached him rapidly from the west. He took it for granted that this was a little girl hurrying home to Mainstone from the dissenting school at Chapel Green, but when they met in the dusk and stared at one another he suddenly became aware that the wayfarer was George’s mother. All the time since he left the inn he had been turning over in his mind the ways in which he might best reveal his tragic news. Now that he found himself face to face with Mrs Malpas, small, intense, and awful in her Sunday bonnet, he could say nothing. They stared at each other for a moment in which Abner was conscious of the hatred in her black eyes. ‘Evenin’, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s lucky I met you. George sent me along with a message.’ ‘Tell me . . . tell me quick, young man,’ she cried. ‘Don’t keep it back whatever it be!’ ‘Bad news, ma’am.’ ‘I know it is. Tell me!’ ‘They’ve took him in charge. It’s manslaughter.’ She made a shrill, wailing noise, something between a laugh and a cry. She gripped his arm tight. He knew that she would almost rather have touched any one on earth, but if she had not steadied herself she would have fallen. ‘Manslaughter. . . . Oh, God, my God! O Lord, have mercy on him, poor soul, and on us too. To think it should come to that! Oh, God . . . God!’ She clutched him again as though a wave were sweeping her legs from under her. Her bony fingers went into the muscle of Abner’s arm. ‘Now don’t take on, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Manslaughter’s a different thing from murder. Thank your luck for that!’ ‘Don’t talk to me of luck!’ she cried. ‘Luck’s a heathen word. As a man sows so shall he reap. The hand of the Lord is heavy on me and my son. He hath forsaken the way of righteousness. Drink and strange women and all the abominations of the ungodly. All my prayers on him were wasted, young man, for I couldn’t keep his feet in the way. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. The Lord gave and the Lord hath took away, and now he stands before an earthly judge. I must go and see him.’ She detached herself from Abner’s arm, but a fit of trembling took her and made her cling to it again. ‘You’d best come home along of me, ma’am,’ he said. ‘They’ll have took him to Lesswardine by this time.’