II
When Bessie awoke the next day the sun was shining on her eye-lids from the skylight in the thatch. She had some difficulty in realising where she was. Before opening her eyes she heard the muffled lowing of the cows in the closed-up cow-house, and had an impulse to do as she had done in earlier days—get up and milk them. At the next moment she heard her mother's shuffling step on the kitchen floor, and then the tide of memory swept back on her.
But she was a different woman this morning. She had no remorse now, no qualm, no compunction. What she had done, she had done, and after all it was the best thing that could have happened—best for her, best for Alick, best for everybody.
Her child being dead she no longer loved it. All she had to do was to bury it away somewhere, and then everything would go on as she had intended. Meantime (before going to sleep) she had taken her precautions. Nobody must know. If there had been reasons why she should not take her mother into her confidence last night they were now increased tenfold.
After a while her mother came up with her breakfast. A veil seemed to dim the old woman's eyes—she looked as if she had been crying.
"How are thou now, bogh?"
"Better! Much better! I told you I should be better in the morning."
The old woman was silent for a moment and then said,
"Thou were not up and downstairs in the night, Bessie?"
"'Deed no! Why should you think so?"