Morel went to bed in misery, and Mrs. Morel felt as if she were
numbed by some drug, as if her feelings were paralysed. She loved him
passionately.

He was in the office of a lawyer connected with a large shipping firm,
and at the midsummer his chief offered him a trip in the Mediterranean
on one of the boats, for quite a small cost. Mrs. Morel wrote: "Go, go,
my boy. You may never have a chance again, and I should love to think of
you cruising there in the Mediterranean almost better than to have you
at home." But William came home for his fortnight's holiday. Not even
the Mediterranean, which pulled at all his young man's desire to travel,
and at his poor man's wonder at the glamorous south, could take him away
when he might come home. That compensated his mother for much.

CHAPTER V

PAUL LAUNCHES INTO LIFE

MOREL was rather a heedless man, careless of danger. So he had endless
accidents. Now, when Mrs. Morel heard the rattle of an empty coal-cart
cease at her entry-end, she ran into the parlour to look, expecting
almost to see her husband seated in the waggon, his face grey under his
dirt, his body limp and sick with some hurt or other. If it were he, she
would run out to help.

About a year after William went to London, and just after Paul had left
school, before he got work, Mrs. Morel was upstairs and her son was
painting in the kitchen--he was very clever with his brush--when there
came a knock at the door. Crossly he put down his brush to go. At the
same moment his mother opened a window upstairs and looked down.

A pit-lad in his dirt stood on the threshold.

"Is this Walter Morel's?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Morel. "What is it?"

But she had guessed already.

"Your mester's got hurt," he said.

"Eh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "It's a wonder if he hadn't, lad. And
what's he done this time?"

"I don't know for sure, but it's 'is leg somewhere. They ta'ein' 'im ter
th' 'ospital."

"Good gracious me!" she exclaimed. "Eh, dear, what a one he is! There's
not five minutes of peace, I'll be hanged if there is! His thumb's
nearly better, and now--Did you see him?"

"I seed him at th' bottom. An' I seed 'em bring 'im up in a tub, an'
'e wor in a dead faint. But he shouted like anythink when Doctor Fraser
examined him i' th' lamp cabin--an' cossed an' swore, an' said as 'e wor
goin' to be ta'en whoam--'e worn't goin' ter th' 'ospital."

The boy faltered to an end.

"He WOULD want to come home,