"Oh! I don't remember!" she said hurriedly, and dropped her face on his coat again.
"Well, we are going to care for each other," he said in a low voice, after a pause. "That's what matters now, isn't it?"
She made no reply, but she put up a hand, and touched his face. He turned his lips to the hand and kissed it tenderly. There was a sore, sad spot in each heart; and neither dared to look forward. But tonight there was a sense of belonging to each other in a new and sacred way, of being drawn apart, separated from the world, husband and wife, together. Through George's mind there wandered half-astonished thoughts about this strange compelling power of marriage,—the deep grip it makes on life—the almost mechanical way in which it bears down resistance, provided only that certain compunctions, certain scruples still remain for it to work on.
George slept lightly, being over-tired. All through the night the vision of the beaten men going down sullenly to their first shift seemed to hold him as though in a nightmare.
Between seven and eight o'clock a sound startled him. He found himself standing by his bed, struggling to wake and collect himself.
A sound that had shaken the house, passing like a dull thud through the valley? A horror seized him. He looked at Letty, who was fast asleep; then he walked noiselessly into his dressing-room, and began to hurry on his clothes.
Five minutes later he was running down the hill at his full speed. It was bitterly cold and still; the first snow lay on the grass, and a raw grey veil hung over the hills. As he came in sight of the distant pit-bank he saw a crowd of women swarming up it; a confused and hideous sound of crying and shrieking came to his ears; and at the same moment a boy, panting and dead-white, ran through the lodge-gates to meet him.
"Where is it, Sprowston?"
"Oh, sir, it's No. 2 pit. The damp's comin up the upcast, and the cage is blown to pieces. But the down shaft's all right, and Mr. Madan and Mr. Macgregor were starting down as I come away. There was eighty-six men and boys went down first shift."
George groaned, and rushed on.