Mainly, her mind was occupied in the reconstruction of her previous belief about Lane Protheroe. He also, it would seem, had manly qualities in him—could stand up to be beaten in the cause of the woman he loved. The blows hurt her so, in the mere fancy of them, that she more than once put up her hands to her face to guard it. By the time she had accomplished her errand, and was on the way back to her father’s farmhouse, she was all tenderness and forgiveness and admiration for the newly-revealed Lane, but then, as the fates would have it, just as she began to think of her cruelty to him, and of the terribly low spirits into which she must have thrown him, the familiar jocund whistle broke upon her ears, and when she stood still in a dreary amaze at this, she could hear the steps of the lover, who ought to have been altogether love-lorn, marching along in something very like a dance in time to his own music. What was one to think of such a man? She was back in a moment to her old opinion of him. No rooted feeling in him—no solidity—nothing to be sure of!
She made haste home, and there shut herself in her own room and cried. Her mother walked upstairs, and finding the girl thus mournfully engaged, sat down tranquilly beside her and produced her knitting. The click of the needles had an effect of commonplace which helped to restore Bertha to her self-possession, and in a little time her tears ceased, and moving to the window she stood there looking out upon the landscape. The monotonous click of the needles ceased, and she knew that her mother had laid down her work in her lap and was regarding her. She turned, with a ghost of a smile.
‘You’re thinkin’, no doubt, as you’re full o’ trouble, my wench,’ began the mother, ‘and it’s no manner o’ use in talkin’ to young folks to try an’ mek out as a thing as pains don’t hurt. But if you can only bring ‘em t’ understand as it won’t hurt much by and by, you’ve done summat for ‘em, may be. What’s the trouble, wench? Come an’ tell thy mother.’
‘It’s all over now, mother,’ said Bertha
‘Not it,’ returned Mrs. Fellowes, ‘nor won’t be yet a while. Beesn’t one as cries for nothing, like most gells. I was niver o’ that kind myself.’
Bertha would not, perhaps could not, make a confidante even of her mother in this matter, but Mrs. Fellowes had a remarkable faculty for striking human averages, and she got near the truth in her guesses.
‘There’s one thing fixed and sure, my dear,’ she said, ‘and that is as follows: ayther you must find a mind to wed one of ‘em, or you must pluck up a spirit and tell ‘em you’ll wed nayther.’
‘I have told Mr. Thistlewood that I can never marry him,’ said Bertha.
‘And what about Lane?’ her mother asked her.
‘I can never marry him either,’ the girl answered steadily. She had her voice under perfect control, but her averted face and the very lines of her figure enlightened the shrewd old mother.