`No, mother, said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. `I will never go in.

BETWEEN four and five oclock on the afternoon of the fifth day from that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St Oggs, Tom Tulliver was standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He was master there now: he had half fulfilled his fathers dying wish, and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he had brought himself near to the attainment of more than the old respectability which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons and Tullivers. But Toms face, as he stood in the hot still sunshine of that summer afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob Jakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport and put an end to all improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that he had seen her land from a vessel with Mr Stephen Guest. Would the next news be that she was married - or what? Probably that she was not married: Toms mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could happen - not death, but disgrace.

Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even the new joy and pride of possessing a two months old baby - quite the liveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. He would perhaps not so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of Maggies appearance with Mr Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport, if he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom, when he went to report it; and since then, the circumstances which in any case gave a disastrous character to her elopement, had passed beyond the more polite circles of St Oggs and had become matter of common talk, accessible to the grooms and errand boys. So that when he opened the door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness, he had no questions to ask: except one, which he dared only ask himself - where was Mr Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped he might be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist in the other world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallen circumstances there. The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs Jakin the larger and Mrs Jakin the less were commanded to ma

九九藏书

ke all thing comfortable for `the old Missis and the young Miss - alas! that she was still `Miss. The ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have come about - how Mr Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or could have let her go away from him when he had the chance of keeping her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry towards dark-eyed Maggie, as in the days when he had bought her the memorable present of books.

`Mumps, lie down there, said Bob, pointing to a place in front of Maggie, `an niver do you stir till youre spoke to.

`Dont you speak so, Miss, said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumpss neck, `if theres anything I can do for you, I should look upon it as a days earnings.

`Hes got no room for us, my dear, now; his wifes got so many children. I dont know where to go, if it isnt to one o your aunts - and I hardly durst, said poor Mrs Tulliver, quite destitute of mental resources in this extremity.

Tom turned and walked into the house.

Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,

`Bob, she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and her fingers, `I have a favour to ask of you.

`Tom-- she began, faintly, `I am come back to you - I am come back home - for refuge - to tell you everything -

`Then wait for me outside. Ill get ready and come with you.

Poor Mrs Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. She had only clear to her the mothers instinct, that she would go with her unhappy child.

Slowly Maggie was turning away, with despair in her heart. But the poor frightened mothers move leaped out now, stronger than all dread.

The Return to the Mill

`You see, weve got a little un, Miss, an I wanted you to look at it, an take it in your arms, if youd be so good. For we made free to name it after you, an it ud be better for your takin a bit o notice on it.

`You will find no home with me, he answered with tremulous rage. `You have disgraced us all - you have disgraced my fathers name. You have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base - deceitful - no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you for ever. You dont belong to me.

`Sit down, Bob, she said presently, and he sat down in silence, finding his tongue unmanage九*九*藏*书*网able in quite a new fashion, refusing to say what he wanted it to say.

Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that prostrating headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strain of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her dress so long unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked in - slowly. Tom did not hear the gate - he was just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned, and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused - trembling and white with disgust and indignation.

Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness, when his master left the room.

Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.

`Well go back, if it disturbs you, Miss, said Bob.

`Tom, said Maggie, with more courage, `I am perhaps not so guilty as you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come back on Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could.

O the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

Maggie paused too - three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his face - felt it rushing through her fibres: but she must speak.

`O lors, Miss, said Bob, pinching Mumpss neck harder than ever, `I wish you did - an ud tell me - Id leather him till I couldnt see - I would - an the Justice might do what he liked to me arter.

As he was walking with his back towards the entrance gate, and his face towards the rushing mill-stream, a tall dark-eyed figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him, with a fast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she had been most afraid, from her childhood upwards - afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable - with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us. That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now: but her mind was unswervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge that had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospect of her own weakness - in her anguish at the injury she had inflicted - she almost d九九藏书esired to endure the severity of Toms reproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh disapproving judgment against which she had so often rebelled: it seemed no more than just to her now - who was weaker than she was? She craved that outward help to her better purpose which would come from complete, submissive confession - from being in the presence of those whose looks and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.

Bobs tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it. But the subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep and difficult of approach that his tongue was likely to run on along the level rather than to carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this, and was silent again for a little while, ruminating much on the possible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in a more timid voice than usual,

`Tom, she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in the effort to speak again - `Whatever I have done - I repent it bitterly - I want to make amends - I will endure anything - I want to be kept from doing wrong again.

`I cant believe in you any more, said Tom, gradually passing from the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility. `You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with Stephen Guest - as you did before with another. He went to see you at my aunt Mosss; you walked alone with him in the lanes: you must have behaved as no modest girl would have done to her cousins lover, else that could never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass - you passed all the other places: you knew what you were doing. You have been using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy - the kindest friend you ever had. Go and see the return you have made her: shes ill - unable to speak - my mother cant go near her, lest she should remind her of you.

`O, no, Bob, said Maggie, `we must let it be - till after a few days, perhaps - when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps he may be going out of town - to a distance, she added, with a new sense of despondency at this idea.

Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, `Yes, Bob, if it is about myself - not about any one else.

This view of things was puzzling to Bob and threw more obscurity than ever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and Maggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even if he could have九_九_藏_书_网 framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby away again to an expectant mother.

`My child! Ill go with you. Youve got a mother.

`What will keep you? said Tom, with cruel bitterness. `Not religion - not your natural feelings of gratitude and honour. And he - he would deserve to be shot, if it were not - But you are ten times worse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. You struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! I have had feelings to struggle with - but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you have had; but I have found my comfort in doing my duty. But I will sanction no such character as yours: the world shall know that I feel the difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, I will provide for you - let my mother know. But you shall not come under my roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of your disgrace - the sight of you is hateful to me.

`I want you to go to Dr Kenns, and ask to speak to him, and tell him that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to me while my mother is away. She will not come back till evening.

`Happen youd like Mumps for company, Miss, he said, when he had taken the baby again. `Hes rare company - Mumps is - he knows iverything, an makes no bother about it. If I tell him, hell lie before you an watch you - as still - just as he watches my pack. Youd better let me leave him a bit - hell get fond on you. Lors, its a fine thing to hev a dumb brute fond on you; itll stick to you, an make no jaw.

`Well, Miss, its this: Do you owe anybody a grudge?

Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralysed by the double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Toms words.

`Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?

Maggie was half stunned: too heavily pressed upon by her anguish even to discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brothers accusations - still less to vindicate herself.

When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in the passage, and put money into her hands.

`Eh, Miss - Id do it in a minute - it is but a step; but Dr Kenns wife lies dead - shes to be buried tomorrow - died the day I come from Mudport. Its all the more pity she should ha died just now, if you want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet--

Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny baby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously to ascertain that this transference was all right. Maggies heart had swelled at t九_九_藏_书_网his action and speech of Bobs: she knew well enough that it was a way he had chosen to show his sympathy and respect.

So they went on their way to St Oggs - to the old house by the river side.

`Mother, said Maggie, at last, `we will go to Lukes cottage - Luke will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl.

Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mothers hand, and they walked a little way in silence.

`My house is yours, mother, always, he said. `You will come and let me know everything you want - you will come back to me.

`Yes, do leave him, please, said Maggie. `I think I should like to have Mumps for a friend.

`No, said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.

`Let us go to Bob Jakins, mother: his wife will have room for us, if they have no other lodger.

`O Bob, said Maggie, smiling faintly. `Youre a very good friend to me. But I shouldnt like to punish any one, even if theyd done me wrong - Ive done wrong myself too often.

`Come in, my child, Mrs Tulliver whispered. `Hell let you stay and sleep in my bed. He wont deny that, if I ask him.

`Not he, Miss, said Bob. `Hell none go away. He isnt one o them gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin places when their wives die: hes got summat else to do. He looks fine an sharp after the parish - he does. He christened the little un; an he was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didnt come to church. But I told him I was upo the travel three parts o the Sundays - An then Im so used to bein on my legs, I cant sit so long on end - "an lors, sir," says I, "a packman can do wi a small lowance o church: it tastes strong," says I; "theres no call to lay it on thick." Eh, Miss, how good the little un is wi you! Its like as if it knowed you: it partly does, Ill be bound - like the birds know the mornin.

But after a day or two Mrs Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for a few hours to see to Toms household matters. Maggie had wished this: after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she had no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of her mothers presence; she even desired to be alone with her grief. But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and turning round her sad face as she said, `Come in, she saw Bob enter with the baby in his arms, and Mumps at his heels.

`No, not any one, said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. `Why?