CHAPTER XXIX.

AN INTRUDER UPON THE AIT.

When Kate Mellor found herself in the streets of Leeham that evening the light was beginning to fail. The clouds, which during the day had been thin and fleecy, had, as the hours went by, grown in extent and mass. They now hung above, fold over fold, dark, gloomy, threatening. The air was heavy, moist, oppressive. Not a breath of wind stirred.

The woman turned to the left, and, taking the tow-path, as she had one night before, set out in the direction of Welford. She wore her veil closely drawn over her disfigured face. Her step was more firm and elastic than in the afternoon. Then she had been on her way to seek physical relief; now she was on her way to alleviate her heart.

She left the tow-path by the approach at Welford, and gained the bridge. The usual group of loungers and loafers were there, but they took no notice of her. They could see by a glance at her that she was poor and miserable, and to be poor and miserable at Welford Bridge insured one against close observation or inquisitive speculation--it was to wear the uniform of the place.

She leaned against the parapet, and gazed at the canal side of Boland's Ait. Everything there was as usual: the floating-stage being moored by the side of the islet, as it had been on the night she tried to draw it across the water.

She turned her eyes on the other side of the island, and started. She saw what she had never seen before: the floating-stage stretching across the water of the bay, making a bridge from one bank to the other. This discovery set her heart beating fast, for if one could only get on Crawford's Quay one could cross over the stage to the Ait.

Hitherto all her hopes had been centred on the stage lying along the islet on the canal side. Now the best chance of gaining the holm lay on the side of the bay.

Crawford's Quay was not used for purposes of trade now, all the buildings being vacant except the house in which Layard lived.

The daylight was almost gone, and the heavy banks of cloud shrouded earth in a dull deep gloom--a gloom deeper than that of clear midnight in this month of June.

Kate Mellor turned again to her left and walked to the top of Crawford Street. She looked down it. All was dark except the one lamp burning like an angry eye at the bottom. As she was perfectly certain no one could recognise her, she went into Crawford Street without much trepidation. She kept on the left-hand side: the one opposite to Crawford's House.

The window of the sitting-room was fully open for air. In the room were four people: a man with a long beard, whom she did not know; a girl with golden-brown hair, whom she had more than once seen take Freddie from her husband at the end of the stage; and a second man whom she could not see, for his back was towards her. And her husband. They were all just in the act of sitting down to supper.

She knew the place and the ways of the people thoroughly. She had studied nothing else for days and days.

"There is no one now on the island but the child, and they will be half-an-hour at supper; they will not stir for half-an-hour! Now is my chance, or never!"

Her heart throbbed painfully; she was so excited that she tottered in her walk. She was afraid to run lest she should attract the attention of people passing along Welford Road at the top of the street.

Everything depended on speed. She had been down here twice before, and found that one of the staples of a padlock securing a gate had rusted loose in the jamb. Without the floating-stage for a bridge, this discovery was useless; without the absence of her husband from the island, or unless he was sunk in profound sleep, the loose staple and the stage-bridge would be of little avail. But here, owing to some extraordinary and beneficent freak, all three combined in her interest to-night!

Not a second was to be lost. Already she was working fiercely at the loose staple. It was rusted and worn, and the wood was decayed all round it, but still it clung to the post, as a loose tooth to the gum.

She seized it with both her hands, although there was hardly room for one hand, and swayed it this way and that until her breath came short and the blood trickled from her fingers.

No doubt it was yielding, but would it come away in time? She had not hours to accomplish the task. She had only minutes, and every minute lost was stolen from the time she might bend over her darling, watching, devouring his lovely face, and listening to his innocent breathing, and feeling his sweet baby breath upon her cheek!

O, this was horrible! Break iron! break wood! break fingers! break arm! but let this poor distracted outcast mother into the presence of her child for the last time, for one parting sight, one parting kiss, in secret and fear!

At last the staple yielded and came away in her hand, and in another moment, after a few gratings and squealings, which turned her cold, lest they should be heard, the unhappy mother forced open the door and passed through.

In another moment she was across the bridge and on the land which her love for her little one had made dearer to her from afar off than ever Canaan was to the desert-withered Israelites of old.

There was light enough to walk without stumbling. She knew the lie of the place as well as it could be learned without absolutely treading the ground. She took her way rapidly round the wall of the old timber-yard and then across the little open space to the cottage. She observed no precaution now, but went on impetuously, headlong.

The door of the cottage was shut. She opened it by the latch, and, having entered, closed it after her. She did not pause to listen; she did not care whether there was any one in the place or not. She knew she was within reach of her child, and that she should be able to see him, to touch him, before she died. She was within arm's length of him, and she would touch him, though he was surrounded by levelled spears. The spears might pierce her bosom, but even though they did she could stretch out her hand and caress his head before the sense left her hand, the sight her eye.

She knew where to find the door of the room in which he slept, for the light she had seen the other night through the eye of Welford Bridge as she came along the tow-path was burning, much dimmed, on the same window-sill now.

She opened the door and entered the room.

In the middle of the bed lay the child, half-naked. The heat of the night had made him restless, and he had kicked off the clothes.

With a long tremulous moan she flung herself forward on the bed, and, penning his little body within the circle of her arms, laid her disfigured face against his head and burst into tears.