_Martin._ I'd rather ha' died than he turn me away. I'd ha' lost everything in the world to know that I was true to 'm, like I was till you looked at me wi' the love in your face. It was a great love ye gave me--you in your grand hoose wi' your delicate ways. But it's broke me. _Janet._ But--it's just the same with us. Just the same as ever it was. _Martin._ Aye. But there's no mending, wi' the likes o' him. _Janet._ What's there to mend? What's there to mend except what's bound you like a slave all the years? You're free--free for the first time since you were a lad mebbe. We'll begin again. We'll be happy--happy. You and me, free in the world! All the time that's been 'll be just like a dream that's past, a waiting time afore we found each other--the long winter afore the flowers come out white and thick on the moors-- _Martin._ Twenty-five years ago he took me.... It's too long to change.... I'll never do his work no more; but it's like as if he'd be my master just the same--till I die-- _Janet._ Listen, Martin. Listen to me. You've worked all your life for him, ever since you were a little lad. Early and late you've been at the Works--working--working--for him. _Martin._ Gladly! _Janet._ Now and then he give you a kind word--when you were wearied out mebbe--and your thoughts might ha' turned to what other men's lives were, wi' time for rest and pleasure. You didn't see through him, you wi' your big heart, Martin. You were too near to see, like I was till Mary came. You worked gladly maybe--but all the time your life was going into Rutherfords'--your manhood into the place he's built. He's had you, Martin,--like he's had me, and all of us. We used to say he was hard and ill-tempered. Bad to do with in the house--we fell silent when he came in--we couldn't see for the little things,--we couldn't see the years passing because of the days. And all the time it was our lives he was taking bit by bit--our lives that we'll never get back.... Now's our chance at last! He's turned us both away, me as well as you. We two he's sent out into the world together. Free. He's done it himself of his own will. It's ours to take, Martin--our happiness. We'll get it in spite of him. He'd kill it if he could. The cruelty of it, that the Rutherfords never kill with one blow: never so merciful are they. In their ruthless march they strangle inch by inch, shed the blood of life drop by drop, until they have broken the very spirit of man and made him as helpless and pitiful as _Martin_,--a trembling leaf tossed about by the winds. A picture of such stirring social and human importance that no one, except he who has reached the stage of _Martin_, can escape its effect. Yet even more significant is the inevitability of the doom of the Rutherfords as embodied in the wisdom of _Mary_, _John's_ wife.