"I have had no time to think yet," said Paul. "Give me till to-morrow night and let me look round a bit. But tell me this, what shed can we hire?"

"There's a shed at the back of St. James's Street," replied Preston.

"I was looking at it only to-day. It'll suit us down to the ground, and we can get it cheap."

For an hour or more they talked, Paul asking keen, searching questions, which could only have been thought of by one who had thoroughly mastered the mysteries of cotton-weaving. Afterwards he went to bed, and thought long on the experiences of the day.

The next morning the town presented a new aspect. It no longer looked _en fete_, as on the previous evening. On every hand halt-consumed coals and strange smelling steams were being emitted from a hundred factories. The streets were empty save for heavy lorries and tramcars.

Presently, at twelve o'clock, the mills would belch forth thousands of pale-faced operatives, who for long hours had been standing at the looms, but who, at present, were immured in those great noisome, prison-like buildings which form the main features of the town.

Paul made several visits that morning, and presently found his way to the empty weaving shed of which Preston had spoken the previous evening. After some difficulty he had an interview with its owner.

Preston had told him that Fletcher was anxious to let this shed. It had been on his hands for several months, and no one seemed to want it.

To his surprise, therefore, Fletcher met him coolly. "Well, they've let you out?" he said to Paul.

"Evidently, or I should not be here," laughed Paul.

"Well, be careful not to get up to your larks again!" said the other, and his tones were almost surly.

Paul took notice of this gibe, but as soon as he thought wise brought the conversation round to the object of his visit.

"I don't know that it's to let," replied Fletcher.

"No?" queried Paul. "Then I must have been misinformed."

"It wur to let," said Fletcher, "and I don't say it isn't now, but I'm noan sure."

"Why, George Preston told me yesterday that you had practically given him the refusal of it."

"Ay, practically, but that noan settles the business. I've had another offer since then."

"May I ask who has made the offer?" asked Paul.

"Thou may ask, but I don't say I shall tell. However, 'appen ow of the biggest manufacturers in the town 'll have it."

"A big manufacturer wouldn't look at it," said Paul. "It's only fit for a man in a small way of business."

Fletcher looked at him and laughed. "Good-morning," he said. "'Appen I can go into it further to-morrow, but not now." And then he turned on his heel and left Paul thinking.

Before the day was out Paul heard that young Edward Wilson, the son of the man who had prosecuted him, had hired the shed for a warehouse, although there seemed no reason at all why he should do so.

"This settles me," said Paul to Preston that night. "It's evident that Wilson has got his knife into me, and he, hearing what you had in your mind, determined to make it impossible. But, never mind," and Paul's somewhat prominent jaws became rigid and stern. "I don't know that I was so keen about manufacturing before, but I'd like to fight Wilson, and he shall see that I'm not easily beaten. But we must go quiet, Preston, and we'll have to be careful. There's not the slightest doubt about it that Wilson thinks he owes me a grudge for what happened nearly three years ago. But for that I shouldn't have had six months at Strangeways. Still, I'm not a chicken, neither are you."

And then the two young men talked long and seriously concerning other alternatives.

A week later the final step was taken, and Paul and Preston had signed a contract to hire a larger weaving shed than they had intended, and arrangements were pushed forward to start work immediately. Indeed, Paul's mind was so filled with the project he had in hand that almost everything else was forgotten. Two matters, however, must be mentioned. The one was a letter from his mother, to whom he had written, giving an account not only of his experiences in prison and of his home-coming, but also of the venture that he was making. "If I succeed, mother," he said, "you must come to Brunford to live. And I mean to succeed. In twelve months from now I am going to be a well-to-do man. I've learnt pretty much all there is to know about manufacturing, and I've a good partner. And I mean to get on. But don't think I've forgotten the real purpose for which I came to the North. I have not found out much about my father yet, although I've tried, tried hard. I can't understand it either. I've got hold of law books containing lists of the names of the barristers in England, and while there are a good many Grahams, none of them seem to tally with the descriptions you gave me. However, once let me get on with manufacturing and I shall have more time. I mean to go up to your father's farm and ask questions there, and you need not fear. I've got the name in Brunford for carrying out the thing I start upon, and I've promised you. But, as I said, as soon as I get on, you must come to Brunford to live with me, and then we can work together."

To this his mother had replied that she could never be a burden to him.

"You don't want a woman worrying you, Paul," she had said. "I'm well enough off down here. You want to be free and unfettered. At the proper time I'll come to you, but not yet, and don't trouble about me."

Paul brooded long over this letter. He pictured her hard, lonely life away down in Cornwall, a few miles from Launceston, where she earned her living as a servant. On several occasions he had sent her money, but each time she had returned it, and it made him sad to think of what she must be suffering. He remembered his promise to her, and his resolution, dark and grim as it was, remained one of the most powerful factors in his life. "I wish she would come and live with me," he reflected. "I think I could bring some brightness into her life, and yet, perhaps, it's just as well she is not here with me. She would have broken her heart during the trial; but I'll not forget--no, I'll not forget."

A fortnight after his return from Manchester he was walking with Preston to a village some distance from; Brunford, where they had arranged to inspect some machinery. By this time he had practically forgotten the meeting with the girl to whom he had spoken so rudely in John Sutcliffe's shop. But this afternoon, even while his mind ought to have been filled with the work he had in hand, his mind turned to her. He remembered the look of anger in her eyes, and the scorn which shone from them as she gazed on him. He wondered who she was, and why she should seem so deeply moved by what he had said.

In order to reach the village of Northcroft, the place towards which they wended, they had to cross some fields, and George Preston and he had scarcely climbed the stile when, coming towards them, they saw two girls. Evidently they were coming from a large house in the near distance, and were walking towards Brunford. Paul saw in a moment that they were not of the operative cla.s.s. They were well-dressed, and it was plainly to be seen that they were strongly differentiated from those women whom it was his lot to meet. He had barely gone half-way across the field, when he stood still and gazed at one of them like a man spell-bound. He recognised her as the girl whom he had met in Sutcliffe's shop. Scarcely knowing what he did, he stood still in the path, thus making it impossible for them to pa.s.s him. Preston, evidently deep in his calculations about the looms he proposed to buy, had for the moment forgotten Paul's presence and had left him behind.

"Will you kindly stand aside?"

Paul recognised the speaker. It was the daughter of Edward Wilson, but he paid no heed to her, he was gazing intently at the other, and he saw the colour mount to her cheeks as their eyes met. He had taken but little notice of her when he had first seen her. He recognised that she belonged to a cla.s.s entirely different from his own, but he remembered little else beyond the anger which she evidently felt towards him. That she had resented his words was evident, but to that he had attached but little importance; now, however, all was different.

He could not understand how or why--she had not only crossed the pathway of his life, but she had entered his life. She seemed to arouse within him all sorts of unthought-of possibilities. His ideas of the world became different. She made him think of the poetry and of the romance of life, even although she still looked upon him with scorn, if not with anger. The morning had been rainy, and the long gra.s.s on either side of the pathway was as wet as a pond, but he did not move aside that she might pa.s.s by, in spite of what her companion had said. Neither did he speak, but stood looking at her. She was utterly different from Emily Wilson, whom he had often seen; indeed, the poles seemed to lie between them. Miss Wilson was tall and largely made, and, in spite of the fact that her dressmaker was an artist, seemed to look poor and shabby beside the stranger. This girl was almost diminutive, and yet she carried herself like a queen. He could not have described a single feature, and yet he knew he would never forget her face. It made him think of the fields around St. Mabyn. It caused him to remember the love song of the birds, the music of a streamlet, as it murmured its way down a valley near his old home. It suggested the countryside, far removed from the smoke and grime of that northern town, a countryside that was peaceful, sweet and beautiful.

"Will you kindly move aside?"

This time he realised what he was doing, and he stepped into the wet gra.s.s.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and then unconsciously he lifted his hat.

He knew that the girl was thinking of their former meeting, thinking of his own rudeness, thinking, too perhaps, of the circ.u.mstances under which he had come back to Brunford. He walked on like a man in a dream. "I had just come out of prison," he said, "and I spoke to her like a clown. What must she think of me?" And then a feeling of bitterness came over his heart. "She's with that Wilson girl," he said, "and I know what they'll say."

But why should he care? What had he in common with this young girl, whose thoughts and feelings must be far removed from his own?

The Lancashire operatives pay little attention to caste or cla.s.s distinction. With them one man is as good as another, even although they are greatly influenced by the fact of success and the ama.s.sing of money. But the inwardness of the word Aristocracy has little or no meaning to them; it is too elusive, too intangible. But at that moment Paul realised something of what it meant. This girl belonged to a cla.s.s of which he knew nothing. She created an atmosphere utterly different from that breathed in a Lancashire manufacturing town. He could not put it into words, but he knew it was there, a refinement, a suggestion of thoughts to which he was a stranger. What was she doing there? She had nothing in common with that Wilson girl, even although the Wilsons were the wealthiest people in Brunford. And then there was something more, he knew not what, only somehow it made life different.

It made him feel how small his world had been, what a little thing money-making was. It suggested a larger world, a higher life of which hitherto he had been ignorant.

When he reached the next stile he found George Preston waiting for him.

"Been talking with Wilson's la.s.s?" asked he with a laugh.

Paul shook his head. "Who's the other one?" he asked. "Is she not a stranger in these parts?"

"Don't you know?" asked Preston.

"No, I don't know."

"Why, she's Miss Bolitho. She's the daughter of the man who had so much to do in sending you to quod."

It seemed as though someone had struck him a blow. Unconsciously he had been weaving fancies around her, unconsciously, too, something had come into his life to which hitherto he had been a stranger. And now to hear that she was the daughter of the man whom he could not think of save as his enemy, almost made him reel! For a few minutes he walked on by Preston's side without speaking, while his companion, almost unconsciously realising that he was in no humour for speech, was likewise silent.

"I suppose," said Preston presently, "that Bolitho and Wilson got friendly through thy trial. Of course, Bolitho's a big man, and knows a lot of the big people in London, still, he's allowed his daughter to come visiting here, and I hear, too, that young Ned Wilson is sweet on her."

Paul did not speak. His mind was dazed, but he felt sure that, for weal or for woe, he and this girl would be a.s.sociated in the future.

"Are you sure she's Bolitho's daughter?" he said to Preston a little later.

"Oh, yes, I'm quite sure. Bolitho was staying at Wilson's house while you were in prison. And it is said that the two families went away to Switzerland together just after Christmas. Besides, Ned Wilson won't be a bad catch. It is said that the firm is making fifty thousand a year, and Ned is the only son. But there, Paul, that's not for us to talk about. They're not in our world at all. We're just beginning, and we shall have hard work to get on. And we must be careful of Ned Wilson, too. But for him, as you know, we should have had Fletcher's weaving shed, and that would have saved us twenty pounds a year in rent."

"Yes," said Paul, and his lips were compressed as he spoke. "I fancy the time will come when Ned Wilson and I will have a lot of old scores to pay off, and I tell you what, Preston, when the time comes I'll not have the worst of it."

A year from that date two events took place which need recording.

Preston and Paul had been going carefully through their books, and had been engaged in what might be termed a kind of stocktaking.

"We have had a great year, Paul," said Preston.