e there are a good many Grahams, none of them seem to tally with
the descriptions you gave me. However, once let me get on with
manufacturing and I shall have more time. I mean to go up to your
father's farm and ask questions there, and you need not fear. I've got
the name in Brunford for carrying out the thing I start upon, and I've
promised you. But, as I said, as soon as I get on, you must come to
Brunford to live with me, and then we can work together."

To this his mother had replied that she could never be a burden to him.
"You don't want a woman worrying you, Paul," she had said. "I'm well
enough off down here. You want to be free and unfettered. At the
proper time I'll come to you, but not yet, and don't trouble about me."

Paul brooded long over this letter. He pictured her hard, lonely life
away down in Cornwall, a few miles from Launceston, where she earned
her living as a servant. On several occasions he had sent her money,
but each time she had returned it, and it made him sad to think of what
she must be suffering. He remembered his promise to her, and his
resolution, dark and grim as it was, remained one of the most powerful
factors in his life. "I wish she would come and live with me," he
reflected. "I think I could bring some brightness into her life, and
yet, perhaps, it's just as well she is not here with me. She would
have broken her heart during the trial; but I'll not forget--no, I'll
not forget."

A fortnight after his return from Manchester he was walking with
Preston to a village some distance from; Brunford, where they had
arranged to inspect some machinery. By this time he had practically
forgotten the meeting with the girl to whom he had spoken so rudely in
John Sutcliffe's shop. But this afternoon, even while his mind ought
to have been filled with the work he had in hand, his mind turned to
her. He remembered the look of anger in her eyes, and the scorn which
shone from them as she gazed on him. He wondered who she was, and why
she should seem so deeply moved by what he had said.

In order to reach the village of Northcroft, the place towards which
they wended, they had to cross some fields, and George Preston and he
had scarcely climbed the stile when, coming towards them, they saw two
girls. Evidently they were coming from a large house in the near
distance, and were walking towards Brunford. Paul saw in a moment that
they were not of the operative class. They were