Mary Anne led him in, scolding and coaxing him with her gentle,
trembling voice. She made him sit down while she blew up the fire; she
fed and tended him. When she had forced him to eat something, she came
behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

'John,' she said, clearing her throat, 'John, yer shan't want while I'm
livin. I promised Eliza I wouldn't forget yer, and I won't. I can work
yet--there's plenty o' people want me to work for 'em--an maybe, when
yer get over this, you'll work a bit too now and again. We'll hold
together, John--anyways. While I live and keep my 'elth, yer shan't
want. An yer'll forgive Bessie'--she broke into sudden sobbing. 'Oh!
I'll never 'ear a crule word about Bessie in my 'ouse, _never_!'

John put his arms on the table and hid his face upon them. He could not
speak of forgiveness, nor could he thank her for her promise. His chief
feeling was an intense wish to sleep; but as Mary Anne dried her tears
and began to go about her household work, the sound of her step, the
sense of her loving presence near him, began for the first time to relax
the aching grip upon his heart. He had always been weak and dependent,
in spite of his thrift and his money. He would be far more weak and
dependent now and henceforward. But again, he had found a woman's
tenderness to lean upon, and as she ministered to him--this humble
shrinking creature he had once so cordially despised--the first drop of
balm fell upon his sore.

Meanwhile, in another cottage a few yards away, Mr. Drew was wrestling
with Isaac. In his own opinion, he met with small success. The man who
had refused his wife mercy, shrank with a kind of horror from talking of
the Divine mercy. Isaac Costrell's was a strange and groping soul. But
those misjudged him who called him a hypocrite.