the glen road near the village, and his knock
was answered by Jen herself. She recognised him instantly, but was too
pre-occupied to take much interest in the fact of his coming. He learned
that her mother had just died, and that the neighbours were in the
house, keeping vigil during the few sad days preceding the burial. It
was evident that there was little real sympathy between them and the
bereaved daughter, so he easily persuaded her to come out and walk a bit
up the road with him. She did so, evidently supposing that he had some
business with her, but too deeply buried in her sorrow to inquire what
it was.

They came to the house by the roadside where he had last seen her and
she had been unconscious of his presence. The place seemed to rouse her
from the dulness of grief, and she suddenly raised her head, like a
beautiful animal scenting some cause of excitement, and stood still,
looking round with brightened eyes, taking long deep breaths in the pure
frosty air. No doubt she had passed the same road many times since the
tryst, but the mind which has lately stood face to face with death
perceives more clearly the true relations of all things to itself; and,
in this spot, among all life's shiftings of the things that seem and are
not, she had stood and wrestled with the reality of her ghostly bondage.

All about them the hills were covered with the year's first snow. How
bright the light was upon their heights! how soft the shadows that
gathered in their slopes! The fields were white also, and the
hedgerows. Above them the sky was veiled with snow clouds, soft and
grey, except that at the verge of east and west there were faint
metallic lines, such as one sees upon clouds across snowfields, like the
pale reflections of a distant fire. Jen had come to a full stop now. She
raised her hands to her face and sobbed out like a little child.

Skelton stood by her, feeling his own feebleness. 'I know you are in
great trouble,' he said.

Her sobs did not last long; she soon mastered them, not by any art of
concealment but by rude force. Then standing shame-faced, with
half-averted head, she wiped her eyes with her apron.

'Yes, sir, I'm in great trouble, greater ner ye can know, fur death's
neither here nor there--it's living that's hard. Parson, he speaks out
about preparing to die, but to my mind it takes a sight more preparing
to know how to go on living.'

'I know that you have greater trouble than your mother's d