“I shan’t rest till I can bring it ye though,” said she. “I ’aven’t never borrowed from nobody afore. That was why ... you know...! P’r’aps I didn’t ought to ha’ took it now. But it seemed as though ... well, it seemed as though, if yer pulled me out o’ the water, I’d got to keep the life in me! I couldn’t ha’ felt like taking it from no one else, I think. But there, ye’re a good sort, and I’ll owe it to you. But I’ll pay you—s’elp me God.”
She shoved the gate open and went out into the road, he following.
“A good sort!” He “a good sort!” An hour ago he would ... no, not have laughed; he would have sworn, to say the very least of it, at any one who had dared to say such a thing; for he would have known they meant it as an insult. But he neither laughed nor swore at this woman. He simply stood still and looked at her.
The clock in the church steeple up the stream struck ten.
“Ye’ll ’ave to look sharp,” said he, “or no one won’t take ye in to-night.”
She was shivering in the bitter air, and she could walk but slowly; still she walked alone.
He moved a few steps beside her, then stopped.
A sudden instinct that he could not have defined bade him send her on her way alone.
“Ye’ll do now,” said he, “won’t ye? Them’s the cottages—up there to yer right. You knock at the first door—there’s an old woman lives there—she used to be mother’s chum. She’d take ye in, if ’twas for nothing, but that ... if she only knowed....”
Nat blushed, and he was not in the habit of blushing, and stammered as he was not in the habit of stammering, for he did not know how to finish his sentence.