"Nay, then, Sarah, you’re wrong, Sarah, you’re dead wrong! I’d be glad to see him just for himself, I would that! He’s been nowt but a trouble and disappointment all his life, but I’d be glad to see him, all the same." She put out the plump fingers which Sarah loathed, and drew them caressingly over the baby face. "I can’t do wi’ failures," she added brokenly; "they make me wild; and Jim was the only failure Blindbeck ever hatched. But for all that he was the bonniest baby of the lot, and there’s times I never remember nowt but that. There’s days I just ache for the sound of his voice, and fair break my heart to think he’ll never come back." There was no doubting the sincerity of her grief, and the big sobs shaking their way through her shook Sarah, too. Her own lips trembled, and her eyes filled; her hands quivered on the arms of the chair. She could not see the pitiful fingers stroking the child’s face, but she who had offered that worship herself needed little help to guess. She had her revenge in full as she sat and listened to the passion that never dies, forcing its way upward even through Eliza’s leathern soul; but the revenge was a two-edged sword that wounded herself as well. All the generosity in her that was still alive and kind would have sprung to the surface instantly if the story had been true. She would have groped her way to Eliza’s side in an effort to console, and perhaps the lifelong enemies might have drawn together for once. But the story was not true, and she had nothing to offer and no right of any sort to speak. She could only sit where she was and suffer and shake, hating herself more in this moment of absolute conquest than she had ever hated Eliza in her darkest hour. But, as a matter of fact, Eliza’s grief would have passed before she could even have tottered to her feet. Her own lips were still shaking when Eliza’s had hardened again; her own eyes were still wet when Eliza’s were dry with hate. The passion which for a brief moment had been selfless and sincere was turned once again into the channel of jealous rage. She swung round so swiftly that her sleeve caught the little frame, and it fell forward unnoticed with a sharp tinkle of broken glass. "There’s summat wrong about it all," she cried venomously, "and I’ll not rest till I find out what it is! What’s Geordie mean by landing up so smart, and leaving our Jim a thousand mile behind? It’s a nasty sort o’ trick, if it’s nothing worse, seeing how they were thick as thieves as lads. I’ll tell you what it is, Sarah, and you may swallow it as you can,--if Geordie’s gitten brass, it’s because he’s robbed it off our Jim! Like enough he’s put an end to him for it, the poor, honest lad--knifed him ... finished him ... put him out o’ the road...!"