They sat together on the same chair, their arms encircling each
other; they wept for the same dead; they had the same hope, and
trust, and overflowing love in the living.
From that time forward, hardly a passing cloud dimmed the happy
confidence of their intercourse; even by Jem would his mother's
temper sooner be irritated than by Mary; before the latter she
repressed her occasional nervous ill-humour till the habit of
indulging it was perceptibly decreased.
Years afterwards, in conversation with Jem, he was startled by a
chance expression which dropped from his mother's lips; it implied a
knowledge of John Barton's crime. It was many a long day since they
had seen any Manchester people who could have revealed the secret
(if indeed it was known in Manchester, against which Jem had guarded
in every possible way). And he was led to inquire first as to the
extent, and then as to the source of her knowledge. It was Mary
herself who had told all.
For on the morning to which this chapter principally relates, as
Mary sat weeping, and as Mrs.
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