or their commonness, his
people. They did not know what things were really worth.

He and she talked very little more that night. After all he left her to
cycle with Edgar.

He had come back to his mother. Hers was the strongest tie in his life.
When he thought round, Miriam shrank away. There was a vague, unreal
feel about her. And nobody else mattered. There was one place in the
world that stood solid and did not melt into unreality: the place where
his mother was. Everybody else could grow shadowy, almost non-existent
to him, but she could not. It was as if the pivot and pole of his life,
from which he could not escape, was his mother.

And in the same way she waited for him. In him was established her life
now. After all, the life beyond offered very little to Mrs. Morel. She
saw that our chance for DOING is here, and doing counted with her. Paul
was going to prove that she had been right; he was going to make a man
whom nothing should shift off his feet; he was going to alter the face
of the earth in some way which mattered. Wherever he went she felt her
soul went with him. Whatever he did she felt her soul stood by him,
ready, as it were, to hand him his tools. She could not bear it when he
was with Miriam. William was dead. She would fight to keep Paul.

And he came back to her. And in his soul was a feeling of the
satisfaction of self-sacrifice because he was faithful to her. She loved
him first; he loved her first. And yet it was not enough. His new young
life, so strong and imperious, was urged towards something else. It made
him mad with restlessness. She saw this, and wished bitterly that Miriam
had been a woman who could take this new life of his, and leave her the
roots. He fought against his mother almost as he fought against Miriam.

It was a week before he went again to Willey Farm. Miriam had suffered
a great deal, and was afraid to see him again. Was she now to endure
the ignominy of his abandoning her? That would only be superficial
and temporary. He would come back. She held the keys to his soul. But
meanwhile, how he would torture her with his battle against her. She
shrank from it.

However, the Sunday after Easter he came to tea. Mrs. Leivers was glad
to see him. She gathered something was fretting him, that he found
things hard. He seemed to drift to her for comfort. And she was good
to him. She did him that great kindness of treating him almost with
reverence.

He met her with the young