of it, sir. It is mebbe right to believe in a man until you find
out he isn't worthy of trust."

"That is quite contrary to your usual advice, Greenwood."

"_Privately_, sir, I am a very trusting man. That is my nature--but in
business it is different--trusting doesn't work in business, sir. You
know that, sir."

John nodded an assent, and said, "Look after loom forty, Greenwood. It
was idle. Find out the reason. As to Akers, I shall do the kind and just
thing, you may rest on that. Is he a pleasant man personally?"

"I dare say he is pleasant enough at a dinner-table, and I'll allow that
he is varry unpleasant at a piece table in the Town Hall. But webs of
stuff and pieces of cloth naturally lock up a man's best self. He
wouldn't hev got back to be Akers of Akerside if things wern't that way
ordered."

This Club news troubled John. He did not believe that Akers cared a
penny piece for a membership, and pooh-pooh it as he would, this
trifling affair would not let him alone. It gnawed under the great
sorrow of Jane's absence, like a rat gnawing under his bed or chair.

But come what will, time and the hour run through the hardest day; the
looms suddenly stopped, the mill was locked, the crowd of workers
scattered silently and wearily, and John rode home with a sick sense of
sorrow at his heart. He had no hope that Jane would be there. He knew
the dear, proud woman too well to expect from her such an impossible
submission. Tears sprang to his eyes as he thought of her, and yet there
was set before him an inexorable duty which he dared not ignore, for the
things of Eternity rested on it.

He left his horse at the stable and walked slowly round to the front of
the house. As he reached the door it was swiftly opened, and in smiles
and radiant raiment Jane stood waiting to receive him.

"John! John, dear!" she said softly, and he took her in his arms and
whispered her name over and over on her lips.

"Dinner will be ready in half an hour," she said, "and it is the dinner
you like best of all. Do not loiter, John."

He shook his head happily and took the broad low steps as a boy
might--two or three at a time. Everything now seemed possible to him.
"She is in an angel's temper," he thought. "She has divined between the
wrong and the right. She will throw the wrong over forever."

And Jane watched him up the stairs with womanly pleasure. She said to
herself, "How handsome he is! How good he is! There are none like hi