The Return to the Mill
BETWEEN four and five oclo the afternoon of the fifth day from that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St Oggs, Tom Tulliver was standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlill. He was master there now: he had half fulfilled his fathers dying wish, and by years of steady self-gover and eic work he had brought himself o the attai of more than the old respectability which had been the proud iance of the Dodsons and Tullivers. But Toms face, as he stood i still sunshine of that summer afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob Jakin had e ba the steamer from Mudport and put ao all improbable suppositions of an act oer by stating that he had seen her land from a vessel with Mr Stephe. Would the news be that she was married - or robably that she was not married: Toms mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could happen - not death, but disgrace.
As he was walking with his back towards the entrae, and his face towards the rushing mill-stream, a tall dark-eyed figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him, with a fast-beati. Her brother was the human being of whom she had been most afraid, from her childhood upwards - afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable - with a mind that we ever mould ourselves upon, ahat we ot eo alienate from us. That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now: but her mind was unswervingly bent ourning to her brother, as the natural refuge that had been given her. In her deep humiliation uhe retrospect of her own weakness - in her anguish at the injury she had inflicted - she almost desired to ehe severity of Toms reproof, to submit in patient sileo that harsh disapproving judgment against which she had so often rebelled: it seemed no more than just to her noas weaker than she was? She craved that outward help to her better purpose which would e from plete, submissive fession - from being in the presence of those whose looks and words would be a refle of her own sce.
Maggie had bee on her bed at York for a day with that prostrating headache which was likely to follow oerrible strain of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her dress so long unged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked in - slowly. Tom did not hear the gate - he was just then close upon the r dam; but he presently turned, and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness seemed to him a firmation of his worst jectures. He paused - trembling and white with disgust and indignation.
Maggie paused too - three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his face - felt it rushing through her fibres: but she must speak.
`Tom-- she began, faintly, `I am e back to you - I am e bae - fe - to tell you everything -
`You will find no home with me, he answered with tremule. `You have disgraced us all - you have disgraced my fathers name. You have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base - deceitful - no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I w