Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/36

Rh glad, if not, he followed them out, quite regardless of any opposition she might offer.

Here was a domestic element full of unhappiness, possibly full of tragedy. Jonathan sat through the long night hours, wakeful, anxious, and sorrowful. He was glad when morning came, and brought with it the open mill, and the mails, and the buyers and sellers. Yet in the fever and turmoil of business he was conscious of an aching, fretful pain, that would assert itself above all considerations about yarns and pieces. His daughter's face haunted his memory. He was angry at Aske, and yet he did not wish to quarrel with him. He had a conviction that it would be like the letting out of water; nobody could tell how far it would go, or in what way it would end.

Early in the afternoon, when business had slacked a little, Burley was standing at the dusty window in his counting-room, looking into the mill-yard. The yard was full of big lorries, which giants in fustian and corduroy were busily loading. Usually, under such circumstances, he would have been mentally checking off the goods and commenting upon them, but at that hour, though his eyes followed every bale or