the three turned away. They were all silent. Going down the path
they could see the light of home right across, and on the ridge of the
hill a thin dark outline with little lights, where the colliery village
touched the sky.

"It has been nice, hasn't it?" he asked.

Miriam murmured assent. Clara was silent.

"Don't you think so?" he persisted.

But she walked with her head up, and still did not answer. He could tell
by the way she moved, as if she didn't care, that she suffered.

At this time Paul took his mother to Lincoln. She was bright and
enthusiastic as ever, but as he sat opposite her in the railway
carriage, she seemed to look frail. He had a momentary sensation as if
she were slipping away from him. Then he wanted to get hold of her, to
fasten her, almost to chain her. He felt he must keep hold of her with
his hand.

They drew near to the city. Both were at the window looking for the
cathedral.

"There she is, mother!" he cried.

They saw the great cathedral lying couchant above the plain.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "So she is!"

He looked at his mother. Her blue eyes were watching the cathedral
quietly. She seemed again to be beyond him. Something in the eternal
repose of the uplifted cathedral, blue and noble against the sky, was
reflected in her, something of the fatality. What was, WAS. With all his
young will he could not alter it. He saw her face, the skin still fresh
and pink and downy, but crow's-feet near her eyes, her eyelids steady,
sinking a little, her mouth always closed with disillusion; and there
was on her the same eternal look, as if she knew fate at last. He beat
against it with all the strength of his soul.

"Look, mother, how big she is above the town! Think, there are streets
and streets below her! She looks bigger than the city altogether."

"So she does!" exclaimed his mother, breaking bright into life again.
But he had seen her sitting, looking steady out of the window at the
cathedral, her face and eyes fixed, reflecting the relentlessness of
life. And the crow's-feet near her eyes, and her mouth shut so hard,
made him feel he would go mad.

They ate a meal that she considered wildly extravagant.

"Don't imagine I like it," she said, as she ate her cutlet. "I DON'T
like it, I really don't! Just THINK of your money wasted!"

"You never mind my money," he said. "You forget I'm a fellow taking his
girl for an outing."

And he bought her some blue violets.

"Stop it at on