'Have you come to stay, Hazel, or only for a visit?' he asked.

'Oh, dunna look at me the like o' that, and dunna talk so stern, Ed'ard!'

'I wasn't aware that I was stern.'

Edward's face was white. He looked down at her with an expression she could not gauge. For there, had come upon him, seeing her there again, so sweet in her dishevelment, so enchanting in her suppliance, the same temptation that tormented him on his wedding-day. Only now he resisted it for a different reason.

Hazel, his Hazel, was no fit mate for him. The words flamed in his brain; then fiercely, he denied them. He would not believe it.

Circumstance, Hazel, his mother, even God might shout the lie at him.

Still, he would not believe.

But he must have it out with her. He must know.

'Hazel,' he said, 'after breakfast I want you to come with me up the Mountain.'

'Yes, Ed'ard,' she said obediently.

She adored his sternness. She adored his look of weariness. She longed hopefully and passionately for his touch.

For now, when it was too late, she loved him--not with any love of earth; that was spoilt for her--but with a grave amorousness kin to that of the Saints, the passion that the Magdalen might have felt for Christ. The earthly love should have been Edward's, too, and would have run in the footsteps of the other love, like a young creature after its mother. But Reddin had intervened.

'First,' Edward said, 'you must have some food and a cup of tea.'

He never wavered in tenderness to her. But she noticed that he did not say 'dear,' nor did he, bringing her in, take her hand.

Breakfast was an agony to Edward, for his mother, who had from the first treated Hazel with silent contempt as a sinner, now stood, on entering with the toast, and said:

'I will not eat with that woman.'

'Mother!'

'If you bring that woman here, I will be no mother to you.'

'Mother! For my sake!'

'She is a wicked woman,' went on Mrs. Marston, in a calm but terrible voice; 'she is an adulteress.'

Edward sprang up.

'How dare you!' he said.

'Are you going to turn her out, Edward?'

'No.'

'Eddie! my little lad!'

Her voice shook.

'No.'

'My boy that I lay in pain for, two days and a night, to bring you into the world!'

Edward covered his face with his hands.

'You will put me before--her?'

'No, mother.'

'You were breast-fed, Eddie, though I was very weak.'

There was a little silence. Edward buried his face in his arms.

'Right is on my side, Edward, and what I wish is God's will. You will put duty first?'

'No. Love.'

'I am getting old, dear. I have not many more years. She has all a lifetime. You will put me first?'

He lifted his head. He looked aged and worn.

'No! And again no!' he said. 'Stop torturing me, mother!'

Mrs. Marston turned without a word to go out. Hazel sprang up, breaking into a passion of tears.

'Oh, let me go!' she cried. 'I'll go away and away! What for did you fetch me from the Calla? None wants me. I wunna miserable at the Calla.

Let me go!'

She stared at Mrs. Marston with terrified eyes.

'She's as awful as death,' she said, 'the old lady. As awful as Mr.

Reddin when he's loving. I'm feared, Ed'ard! I'd liefer go.'

But Edward's arm was round her. His hand was on her trembling one.

'You shall not frighten my little one!' he said to his mother; and she went to the kitchen, where, frozen with grief, she remained all morning in a kind of torpor. Martha was afraid she would have a stroke. But she dared not speak to Edward, for, hovering in the passage, she had seen his face as he shut the door.

He made Hazel eat and drink. Then they went out on the hill.

'Now, Hazel,' he said, 'we must have truth between us. Did you go with that man of your own will?'

She was silent.

'You must have done, or why go a second time? Did you?' His eyes compelled her. She shivered.

'Yes, Ed'ard. But I didna want to. I didna!'

'How can both be true?'