‘Then I am very glad he _is_ determined,’ answered Ellen, briskly, as if anxious to have the subject disposed of. And Sara did not resume it, but she was that night in no humour for either work or play. She sat in her easy-chair beside the table on which stood her lamp, and thought and pondered until her brain seemed to ache. Where was he now? How far advanced on his dreary way to England and Manchester? She knew nothing of the north of England. She only knew that Wellfield, where his lost home was, was in the north-east corner of the great manufacturing county, and that (so he had told her) it was a lovely and fertile spot, surrounded on one side by bleak Yorkshire moors, and on others by great grimy manufacturing towns. Of course she had heard of the north of England towns, had met people who came from them, had passed through some of them years ago, on her way to Scotland with her father; but all that region was a great unknown land to her, with, as it seemed, the one exception of Wellfield, which she had found upon an ordnance map, and had pictured in her heart, until it took up a great space in her imagination; and for her ‘the north’ as applied to England, meant Wellfield. A ridiculous mental position no doubt, but one not entirely without precedent. Well, she thought, he would soon be there. He had told her he intended to go to see the old place once again. Mr. Bolton, the new owner, would not be so churlish as to refuse him that grace. And he had promised to write and tell her about it. ‘Cruel?’ she thought, reflecting upon Ellen’s words. ‘I suppose that means resolute. People sometimes have to be almost cruel. It is often apparent cruelty which is really the greatest kindness. Jerome could be most determined, I am certain. I have noticed a change myself, since—since his trouble. I daresay he could even be what Ellen would imagine cruel; but if so, it would be because he thought it right.’ Meditating upon this thought and variations of it, she sat until far in the night.