'Let her know? Who was to let her know? Your letter came eight o'clock and our train started half-past ten. I'd just time to pitch my things together and that was about all.' 'And you never sent, and you haven't written?' 'You leave me alone,' said the girl, turning instantly sulky under his tone and look. 'It's nowt to you what I do.' 'Why!' he said, his voice shaking, 'she'd be waiting and waiting--and she's got nothing else to depend on.' 'There's her brother,' said Louie angrily, 'and if he won't take her, there's the workhouse. They'll take her there fast enough, and she won't know anything about it.' 'The _workhouse_!' cried David, springing up, incensed past bearing by her callous way. 'Margaret that took you in out of the snow!--you said it yourself. And you--you'd not lift a finger--not you--you'd not even give her notice--"chuck her into the workhouse--that's good enough for her!" It's _vile_,--that's what it is!' He stood, choked by his own wrath, eyeing her fiercely--a young thunder god of disdain and condemnation. Louie too got up--gathering up her work round her--and gave him back his look with interest before she flung out of the room. 'Keep a civil tongue in your head, sir, or I'll let you know,' she cried. 'I'll not be called over the coals by you nor nobody. I'll do what I _please_,--and if you don't like it you can do the other thing--so there--now you know!' And with a nod of the utmost provocation and defiance she banged the door behind her and went up to bed. David flung down the pen with which he had been lettering his books on the table, and, drawing a chair up to the fire, he sat moodily staring into the embers. So it was all to begin again--the long wrangle and jar of their childhood. Why had he broken silence and taken this burden once more upon his shoulders? He had a moment of passionate regret. It seemed to him more than he could bear. No gratitude, no kindness; and this fierce tongue! After a while he fetched pen and paper and began to write on his knee, while his look kindled again. He wrote to Margaret, a letter of boyish effusion and affection, his own conscience quickened to passion by Louie's lack of conscience. He had never forgotten her, he said, and he wished he could see her again. She must write, or get some one to write for her--and tell him what she was going to do now that Louie had left her. He had been angry with Louie for coming away without sending word. But what he wanted to say was this: if Margaret could get no one to work the loom, he, David, would pay her brother four shillings a week, for six months certain, towards her expenses if he would take her in and look after her. She must ask somebody to write at once and say what was to be done. If her brother consented to take her, David would send a post-office order for the first month at once. He was doing well in his business, and there would be no doubt about the payments.