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"I'll... I'll be going now. Sir," she said.

"Very well."

She walked slowly down the room, he by her side, and before they reached the door he stopped and said, "May I say again how very grateful I am to you? I shall always be in your debt. Cunnings will call upon you soon and tell you of my arrangements for you."

She said nothing to this, yet she wanted to talk, jabber. It was a strange feeling.

His Lordship accompanied her across the hall. He made a sign to Hatton who called to the coachman. Then, within Hatton's hearing and, as the butler said later he could hardly believe his ears, His Lordship bowed towards her and said, "If you would care to call at any time I shall be pleased to see you." He had not said "If you would care to come and see the child," but that was what he meant. Again she told e herself to keep silent. She now inclined her head towards him, then walked from him and down the steps to where Bowmer was waiting to help her into the carriage.

Fifteen minutes later Bowmer helped her out of the carriage and then found he had to help her up the slope; and when they entered the house he put her on a chair, and she said to him, in an odd voice, "Thanks; I'll be all right now. " Looking at her face he didn't think she would be, but that wasn't his business and so he took his leave.

There was a blizzard raging when Matthew made his way, by road, it being the safest to the dwelling; and when Charlotte opened the door to him he saw that her face was red with crying. He was kicking the snow from his boots and leggings as he asked quickly, "What is it?"

"It's our Cissie; she's bad."

Inside the room he looked to where Cissie was lying on the straw tick before the fire, with Sarah kneeling beside her. When he reached them Sarah looked up at him dumbly, fear in her eyes, and he gazed down at Cissie.

Her breath was coming in short, hard gasps, pushing the padded quilt up and down as if it were worked by a pump handle.

He said quickly, "How long has she been like this?"

"Since yesterday, since she come back after takin' Richard to the Hall."

"She took him back?"

"Aye. An' she's been bad since. It got worse last night an' ... an'

she told us to keep her warm. She brought the tick in here." She tapped the bed.

"She keeps talking and yellin' and she won't let's touch her hands.

We've washed her face but she won't let's touch her hands."

He looked at Cissie's hands, tight against her breast, the fingers of one hand tucked into the other.

She turned her head now and looked up at him with a blank gaze and croaked, "The scarf was round her neck, round the hole.

"Twas all red, just the ends white, just the ends."

"She keeps on like that," said Sarah; "she keeps on about a scarf. And she was sittin' up in the night and yellin' about a woman with a gun.

She's gone wrong in the head. "

He turned and looked at Sarah in silence until Cissie began to ramble again, her head tossing now as she mumbled, "She was as long as the door and her feet stuck out from under the cloak. Matthew ... Matthew he put his cloak over her, an" Clive . Clive . Clive. " Her voice trailed away. Then she pushed herself up on her elbow and began to cough, and Sarah held her and when she lay back she caught hold of her sister's hand and said between gasps, " He sat on the wood block, just like her, like dead, an' . an' he had the same look in his eyes, when

. when. " Her voice again trailed away.

Sarah said now, "We should get somebody, a woman from the hamlet." And he asked, "What?" then exclaimed harshly, "Nol Nol" That was the last thing they wanted in here, a woman who, listening to her ravings, would soon put two and two together, and then where would they all be.

"Is it the fever, Matthew?" Sarah now whispered, and he said, "No, not the typhoid. I think it's a sort of pneumonia."

"Will she die?"

"No! Nol" Her question brought him up on to his feet, and he said briskly as he took his coat off, "Get e some boiling water going. And you" --he turned to Charlotte and Annie"--stop your sniveling now and bring me some covers, top bedding.

Go on. "

He rolled up his sleeves, saying to Sarah, "We'll make a sort of tent an' fill it with the steam from the kettle.... Put a bit of sacking round the bottom to save the soot falling off it. And get Charlotte to keep the kale pot boiling."

"Clive ... Clive."

He looked down on her. She was thrashing the cover with her joined hands as she gasped out the name, and his face hardened for a moment as he thought. She must think of him as that. But what odds. What odds now, for if she wasn't seen to and quick she wouldn't be able to think anything, she would die. His father had gone like this, not through his broken back but just with. the chill.

It snowed all day and it lay thick, and when darkness came and a keen northeast wind started to blow, it gathered into deep drifts which piled against the dwelling and muffled all sound like a great feather tick.

The heat in the room was almost unbearable. Matthew felt he was sitting in a steam bath; he was wearing only his shirt and breeches and they were both sticking to his skin. Except for the time he had galloped back to the mill he had been on his knees most of the day and under a tent-like structure held by the girls, while he supported the steaming kettle. Twice he'd had to lift her while the girls had pulled the sweat-soaked coarse sheet from underneath her and put a dry one in its place. And he had seen her body for the first time when he had rubbed it with warm towels, and he had groaned inwardly the while. Now it was close on nine o'clock and there was a long night to face, and she seemed to be getting worse with every minute of it.

Nellie and Annie were in bed in the cave. Sarah, worn out, was sleeping huddled up on a blanket between the foot of the mattress and the cave wall, and Charlotte was making a brave effort to keep awake and to hand Matthew the things he needed.

There were two candles burning on the mantel piece and a lantern stood in the middle of the table. Although the room held sounds of Cissie's agonized breathing, the wood crackling in the fire, and the water bubbling in the big black kale pot on the low hob, the place was strangely quiet.

He himself felt very tired sapped, in fact. There was a cramp in his leg and he was in the act of pulling himself to his feet when Charlotte let out a smothered scream and he swung round to see her with her hands across her mouth staring at the little window. His eyes flicking to it, he saw, above the banked snow on the rough ledge of stone that sup ported the frame, a face. One second it was there, the next it had gone. Although the impression had been as fleeting as lightning he had recognized the eyes in that face.

As he rushed across the room he grabbed his coat from the chest and the lantern from the table. The next minute he was outside pulling the door closed behind him. Stretching his arm to its fullest extent he swung the lantern high and in its arch he saw the dark, bulky figure stumbling away in the snow. He ran down the path the children had cut earlier in the drift leading to the wood house, and when he reached the end of the wall he floundered into deep snow and shouted above the wind, "I hope you're satisfied." Then he stood for a moment before turning about and going into the house again.

When he had gone home earlier in the day he had said to her frankly,

"I'll be out all night." She had been cutting some material on the table and had a pair of scissors in her hand. She had pulled her fingers from the handles and gripped them like a man does a dagger before plunging it forward, and he had answered her ferocious look by saying, "If it was for that I could have stayed out nights years ago; I'm goin' because she's ill, very ill. It's pneumonia an' there's only the hairns there."

He had watched her gulping on her spittle before she growled out, "It's usual to get a woman to nurse another; she's near the hamlet."

And to this he answered, "Aye, she is; but you and your like have made it impossible for her to go near the hamlet for years. Anyway, few will risk their necks over that land in weather like this."

"But you will.... You will."

"Aye, I will." He nodded at her, and on this she stabbed the scissors point down into the wooden table. Then she said under her breath,

"I'll bring Parson Bainbridge to you and I'll get him to hold you up from the pulpit. He's done it afore to bring folks like you to heel."

His face darkened at this and he said slowly, "You bring Parson Bainbridge here or go to him and, I'm telling you, I'll prove your words right. Just think on that. You bring him here an' I'll not only take her but every bitch I can get me hands on. And I'll pay them well. Aye, by God, I'll pay them well. I'll see the miller's money is put to some good. Now you think on it." And with that he had left her. Back in the room. Charlotte said, "Who was it?" and he answered,

"Likely somebody lost their way." She stared at him, not believing him, but said nothing more, until Cissie began rambling again, croaking out words, "Soup. Soup." Turning from her knees she said, "She keeps on about soup but she can't drink any. And she's at that again, pushing the back of her hand across my mouth."

"Get by," he said, and taking Charlotte's place he began to wipe the running sweat from Cissie's face and neck.

Her breathing now was becoming even more difficult. She tossed from side to side and moaned and croaked out the child's name.

"Richard. Richard."

It was around two o'clock in the morning, when the crisis was at its height, that she spoke his own name.

"Matthewl Matthewl" she said, and he soothed her and whispered, "Yes, my love?" And then she said, "Clive. Poor dive."

When she pushed her hand up towards his face he gripped it in both of his and brought it down to his breast, and when again she said, "Clive.

Poor Clive," he dropped his teeth tight down on to his lip.

Her coughing began to rack her body, and the beat of her heart raced against him as he had felt no heart race before, and the sweat ran from her pores and soaked him, and he began to use Parson Hedley's prayers, together with his own form of bargaining, beseeching the Almighty not to take her and promising Him payment in return. He could ask anything of him and he would do it, if only He wouldn't take her.

When he became aware of the four girls standing around him he knew that some time had passed for he hadn't heard them come. He also became aware that his calves were in an excruciating cramp and his left arm was dead with numbness and that his shirt was stuck to his back and his own body was running sweat. He stared down at the head lying on his arm and for a moment he thought she was gone. Then she made a sound in her throat and phlegm came out of her mouth, and he withdrew his arm and laid her back on the pillow; and more time elapsed while he and the children stared at her. Then Annie's weeping forced its way into his mind, and he turned to her, he turned to them all and said, "She'll be all right, it's over."

At eight o'clock the next morning when he made his way into the mill yard Straker said to him,

"What's happened the missus?" and he stared at the man a whole minute before he asked, "Isn't she back?"

The answer seemed to surprise Straker, for he said, "You knew she was out then?"

Again he didn't answer immediately, but his mind was moving fast. If she hadn't come back she had been out there all night, likely fallen into a drift, and that would mean--he wouldn't even let his thoughts pronounce the words, but it Straker knew the reason why she had gone out in a blizzard then there'd be talk, dangerous talk. He said now,

"Of course I knew she was out; she brought some soup over. I was with a friend who's got pneumonia. I told her I was stayin' the night. She she left about nine. Have you been indoors?"

"Aye." Straker shook his head now.

"I went in the kitchen. The fire was still banked down, the breakfast wasn't set. I thought it was funny. I called upstairs and when I got no answer I went up and knocked."

He now hurried towards the house, saying over his shoulder, "I'll change me things, they're wet, then we'll go and look."

In the kitchen it was as Straker said; and he stood now gripping his chin tight in his hand. Then he went swiftly to the fireplace and picked up the kettle that was bubbling gently against the banked-down fire and brewed himself some tea; and after he had hurriedly changed his clothes he gulped the tea quickly, then went out again.

Straker was waiting for him in the yard, and the old man said, "Where will we look first?"

"We'll keep to the road," he said, "to the turnpike, then cut up on the fell. That's the way she came."

They did this, and it took them two hours before they came in sight of the habitation. But there was no sign of Rose. Nor when other searchers joined them and spent the day in the blizzard did they find her;

they didn't find her until the third day when the snow had ceased falling and the gale-force wind, whirling fanatically, made unnatural valleys and hills all over the fell. It was the barking of a sheep dog that drew the searchers to the quarry. And there they saw, uncovered by the wind, the body of the miller's wife still clinging to her lantern. She must have slipped off the edge and tumbled to the bottom; and being stunned, she had frozen to death, then was buried by the drifts.

It wasn't until after her funeral when the mourners had gone and only his mother, his grandmother, and his aunt remained that he allowed himself to realize that he was free, and what this meant. It was his mother who actually forced the realization to the surface, for during the five days Rose had lain in the parlor he had told himself he must try and do the decent thing. For the time she lay in the house he mustn't allow himself to think of the future. It was there shining bright, but he couldn't open the door to it until she was in her grave.

And now even then;

there was the period of respect to be maintained. And then his mother had said, "We'll move over the morrow."