In the low light of that frosty morning, Mr Thornton lifted his son from Isabel's arms, and set him in his crib, as Isabel straightened her nightgown, after having nursed little Johnny. It was a co-operative routine they had quickly fallen into; Johnny being very small, and requiring regular nourishment. Mr Thornton would take his grizzling son into his strong arms, kiss his head softly, and place him to his wife's bosom. Then he would lie back and watch the beauty that was wife nursing son, before taking the infant, and settling him back to his crib. And for all his heart ached, and a pressure dwelt heavy within his breast - now cloying up his throat as though to strangle him - Mr Thornton was gladdened by that happy, domestic scene, and felt his eyes soften; his heart beat with tender sentiment.

Indeed, he felt his eyes lift at the corners; his lips part in wonder, as he looked upon the suckling babe. And because he felt the changes in his own countenance - so very noticeable, because his resting expression, was - during that long and bitter night - so drenched in agony, and etched with deep lines of sorrow - he noticed in his wife, that although she nursed their son, she took no pleasure in it.

The room was now quite cosy with a roaring fire, which he kept well banked, so as to keep the chill from little Johnny, who was not very fat, and needed warmth. It was only the great heat of the room, which brought the merest hint of pink to Isabel's cheeks. Her aching heart was not eased - not even momentarily - by holding little Johnny in her arms, or placing him at her bosom. Mr Thornton saw it quite plainly, and he despaired of it. He could not understand his wife, and after eight long hours, he fairly wished to shake her, and demand some explanation. But innately, he knew that he could not force from her, the expression of emotion that he wished to see, and so he bided his time, and watched on without comment.

What he did not know, was that Isabel fairly despised nursing poor little Johnny. When she did not hold him, her heart was numb, and she could tolerate the pain of losing her daughter. But once her son was placed in her arms; once she felt his warmth, his weight, his wriggling body, or smelt his potent scent, she felt such a lash of grief, as to make her despair that she could not bring herself to wish her son close by. With each time that she nursed him - as Mr Thornton watched quietly, as though soothed by the comely vision - she would bite her tongue to hold back a bitter cry of, "Oh! it is not fair!", for her arms were far too empty; the weight they bore, too slight. Where there ought to have been two babes, she now had only one. And poor Johnny! It was not his fault - Isabel knew it well - but it pained her to look at him, for all he did was remind her of her daughter, until she felt she would be glad to see him taken from the room, as her husband had seen fit to do the night before.

'Isabel,' said Mr Thornton; his voice tentative and uncertain. 'Mother asked if you would care to eat something.'

'Mother?' asked she, turning to face him in confusion.

'Yes, Izzy; Mother his here.' Isabel cast her eyes about the room, before resting them upon his mother.

'Oh, I did not see you; did not hear you. Tea; I could take tea, but I don't think I could eat at all.' Mrs Thornton pursed her lips in displeasure, for her daughter needed to eat if she wished to nurse the babe. And how could she not have seen her enter the room! Not have heard her speak! She turned to look at her son in question, and he gave her such a hopeless, pleading look, that she quickly rung for Jane, and ordered refreshments to the room, before settling herself a chair; determined to watch the new mother closely, and see what might be done.

'Do you have pain, Isabel?' asked Mrs Thornton.

'It is nothing,' came her dismissive reply. Now she licked her lips, and looked pointedly at Mrs Thornton. 'You might hold him, if you like.' And so grandmother took grandson, and held him to her bosom, with such an attitude of warm affection, as to wring from Mr Thornton, his first genuine smile.

'He is called John George Thornton, but we shall call him Johnny,' explained Isabel, with little emotion.

'John!' repeated Mrs Thornton, with a heavy-hearted smile, and she looked to her son; her eyes shining with pride. 'A son, John - to carry on your name.'

'It is well then,' quipped Isabel, with a tight-lipped smile, 'that it was only a mere daughter who died, and not the son, instead. You did wish for John to have a son, did you not? You did think a daughter worth far less.'

'Isabel!' glowered Mr Thornton, rising quickly in a pique of disgusted anger. 'How can you say such a thing! When mother has been so good to us; when she has lost her own grandchild!' And Mrs Thornton did look startled, but she knew - for she had been in Isabel's place - the agony of a grieving mother's heart, and so she willed herself to calm her temper and keep her voice steady; for the sake of both son and wife.

'Losing a daughter does not hurt any less than losing a son, Isabel. I know it well; I lost my Sophie,' replied Mrs Thornton, cajolingly.

'Yes! Yes! I am sorry, Mother. I am very sorry. I did not mean to say that,' fretted Isabel, with a distracted shake of her head. For if Mrs Thornton's pain at losing little Sophie, was one ounce of what Isabel now felt, she did sorely regret her snide castigation.

'It is alright, love,' soothed Mr Thornton, now softening his tone, at the sight of his wife's distress. 'Mother and I know you did not mean it; it is only your grief - it makes you say those things.'

'Yes, perhaps, John,' said Isabel, with a listless sigh, but she did not truly look at him.

Morning passed to afternoon, and mother and son looked on, as Isabel mechanically settled her son at her bosom, before turning her face away, and staring about the room, or gazing from the window. She was withdrawn, and showed no interest in little Johnny, and barely listened to one word of what was spoke between anxious mother and son. And when Johnny started crying, and Isabel only frowned at the window, and said, "I think that it might snow", Mr Thornton finally lost his temper, and stood quickly from his chair, drawing in one great ragged breath.

'Mother,' said he, his nostrils flaring in evidence of his great vexation, 'might you take Johnny and perhaps walk him about the house?'

'It is warmer in here, John. We ought to keep him warm.'

'Ay, then keep him to the kitchen, until a fire can be lit in your room, but I wish to speak to Isabel, alone.' Mrs Thornton's eyes swivelled anxiously between Mr Thornton and his wife, but seeing his determined look, and the great stifled passion he fought; seeing Isabel's utter lack of emotion, she relented, and swept that precious babe into her arms, and quietly closed the door.

'Isabel,' said he, now coming close to his wife. 'This must stop. You cannot ignore your son. You must speak to me. You must let Mother and I help you; we are all grieving and you do not seem to care for how I might feel,' said Mr Thornton, sadly.

'Do not care how you feel?' asked Isabel, incredulously. 'You are very wrong. I shan't burden you with my thoughts, for I see you are already burdened by my grief.'

'Burden! You speak of burden, but I am your husband and we share this loss. Let me understand, Isabel. Do not shut me out, and do not turn away from your son,' said Mr Thornton; a little more loudly than he had intended.

'Then I shall tell you,' said Isabel, plainly; her eyes quite wide and clear. 'I have been sat here thinking, that if I had never arrived in Milton, and had birthed our babes in my time, Grace would not have died. Your medicine - your doctors - they are inferior. She died a needless death, John. A modern doctor could have saved her.'

'How!' demanded he, for her proclamation stung him, and he wished to own her words to be a lie.

'They would have monitored the twins to know that they were well, and they both could have been quite safely and painlessly cut from my womb. To know that I as good as killed my own daughter, by arriving in this Godforsaken place, where your medicine is crude and your doctors prescribe pears to a lady with consumption! Where these knowing men think a woman without child suffers some great malady of the womb, when it is just as likely that the man's seed it blighted! No; this place breeds unnecessary death and disease. It festers, and creeps into the drawing rooms, until you are all so familiar with it, that you do not blink one eye. But I have known different, John, and I cannot help but regret it; for coming here has cost my Grace her life.' He stood tall and panting, his face twisted in disgusted agony, as his mouth opened and closed wordlessly, for he could not believe the vehemence of her cry; the anger and loathing she expressed for his home.

'If you had not come to Milton, Izzy, we would not be married. There would be no babes; never would there have been a Grace to lose!' came his angered plea, for surely, she could not regret their love; their marriage, and the life that it had brought them, in their cherished son? But she only shook her head in denial, determined to cling to that unsavoury belief that something might have been done; that there had been some great injustice, and it was not simply "the way of things".

'Perhaps so, but I might have had another babe - other twins, and they would not have died,' said Isabel, carelessly.

'Other twins? Another man's?' asked Mr Thornton, incredulously; his brow deeply furrowed; his fists clenched in hurt frustration. Now his licked his lips in anticipation of the fight, and with white knuckles, did he roar at her, "Well! Another man's child? You wish away our son and speak of another man's child!' And that deep, impassioned voice, rung crisply through the air, until one might have claimed to hear it echo.

'Of course I do not wish away our son!' insisted Isabel, blinking.

'You might have fooled me!' Now he glowered at her, sneering in revulsion, and he paced the room, before stopping at the window, where the yard was thick with the swell of harried workers. 'You say she might have lived,' said Mr Thornton, quietly, as he kept his back to Isabel. 'I might agree with you, but not by your reckoning.' Now turning to face her, his own expression one of bitter, tortured loathing - his innate desire at that moment, to lash out at the one who ought to comfort him, yet pained him more than any ever had, 'I might blame you!'

'Me!' asked she, indignantly.

'Ay! You fell with child about the time of your swim in The Hoppen; careless, reckless behaviour! Who knows what harm that did! Then there came the mill fire, and instead of obeying me with dignity, you worked yourself into such a frenzy, as to scream for me as though you were a lowly fishwife!' barked Mr Thornton, scowling bitterly at his wife.

'You cannot blame me, John! You know nothing of medicine or babes,' replied Isabel, defiantly. Yet, for all she denied his accusations and sought to brush them carelessly aside, his words, his look, his tone; the tension in his body, which spoke of savage anger, smote her as nothing ever had, and it took all her will to prevent herself from crying in the face of his castigation.

'Cannot blame you?' laughed Mr Thornton, cruelly, and he stepped in close to Isabel's bedside, and leant towards her so that his breath brushed against her face. 'Mother said you ought to not work. I did not want you to, but pandered to your stubborn ways. I wanted the infirmary shut up! I wanted you gone from there! I had worried for infection, and thought you over-tired, but you insisted, because you cannot deign to sit about the house, but must always be different; always have the accolades of others!' He was unfair, he knew himself to be, but still, he continued; committed as he was. 'And then came the threat of scarlet fever - a very close call! Too late, though, I think it, for you were already thin. You would not eat, and let yourself grow thin. I have been hard pressed at the mill, but I brushed off my work to come to you at meal times, and watch over you like an invalid, to tempt you towards food. What a careless doctor; not to eat in your condition!'

'I did eat!'

'Ay! But not enough. I asked Donaldson why Grace died, and he told me that you likely laboured too long. Perhaps too slight, he said - and that is not your fault - but also weak, I might say - too thin to take the strain of a long and trying labour. I might very well blame you, I should think. You took no care for yourself - determined as you were, to sneer at the likes of Fanny, who only thinks of her babe and its health.' An audacious lie! He knew it, but could not reason in his tirade. 'But you! You are above all ailment, and dash about unthinking. Well now you pay the price; myself too, for I ought to have corrected you - ought to have insisted.' And here, he shook his head sadly, and lowered his tone, as though directing his rebuke at himself, instead of his wife. 'What a sorry state - to have our daughter cruelly punished, when the fault was all yours, and then all mine, for not correcting you.' He stood back, sneering at her as he heaved great passionate breaths, and scowled when he saw no tears fall.

A cold heart! cried Mr Thornton to himself. How can she be so unmoved? Now he shook his head and turned from her, as he made towards the door.

'I hope you are happy, Isabel. I hope your independence was worth the price; you have cost me dear; let that sit upon your conscience, and then dare to tell me that Milton killed our babe. It was not Milton or a lack of science. I'd fairly call it you.'

'I do not like pears!' yelled Isabel, her fists clenching manically at the bedclothes, as she drew in shuddering breaths; her whole face contorted in a mixture of pain and unbridled fury. He stopped at hearing her angry cry, and looked back at her in confusion, as he watched her body tremble in excited passion.

'You are mad!' said he. 'You are quite gone mad.'

'You call me mad,' cried Isabel, 'but I am real. You - you are entirely fictitious. I used to admire your author. I thought you an admirable creation, but you are cruel and unjust. Your mother - I think her rather singular in her possessive love for you. Why, any woman you might have married, would surely have felt her regard for you quite queer. If I did strive to leave this house, and cling fiercely to my work, it was only to escape the stifling solitude - the misery, of living in this cold, unfeeling home, with a mother-in-law who has - I dare to say - a hold upon you which verges on the incestuous!' But for all that she might hurl her insults at him - for all that he might forgive her angry words for him - he would not allow such evil criticism of his mother. And facing at her with a look to smite an army, he scowled, roughly opened the door, and dropped his voice low, in rebuke.

'Cease your raving, Isabel! You'll not speak against my mother with that evil tongue of yours.' And slamming the door behind him, he left without a backwards glance.

How! thought Isabel, how did we come to this? He does hate me. He blames her death on me, and then he calls me mad. I am not mad! But this last, she did not tell herself with any fervour or conviction, for she thought it quite likely that she may have dreamt up her entire sorry life. In doubt - and wincing against the pain of it - she climbed from the bed, and moved toward her vanity, where she pulled out her phone, and having kept it powered by sunlight, she turned it on. There she spent some fifteen minutes looking at the photographs of the world she had known before Milton; the familiar faces and places - now so wholly alien. And as she looked through the pictures, she came upon those of Mr Thornton, and thus, both worlds - both realities - collided before her eyes, and so she knew her life to be real, unless she was so utterly mad, that she could not see what was before her very eyes.

Isabel held that phone within her hand, and licking her lips, crept slowly and quietly from her room, and down the hallway, to the nursery which had been set up in anticipation of a babe, but not yet used (for Isabel meant to keep her son about her). There she found that little angel, lying peacefully in the crib; swaddled in a beautiful knitted blanket, which had been lovingly, and quite hastily, adorned with the initials G.J.T., by Mrs Thornton's practiced hand.

'My darling,' whispered Isabel, pressing a kiss to her finger, and touching it against that delicate, pale brow. And wanting to look upon that innocent face for an eternity, Isabel took her phone and busied herself about some photographs, before sitting beside the crib, taking her daughter in her arms, and rocking her as though soothing her to repose. Thus, mother fell into a weary slumber, as daughter continued her eternal sleep.

Mr Thornton flew down the stairs in a fit of temper, and strode through the house with such purposeful anger - his gait so aggressive and unrelenting - that his steps echoed through the floors; a door now roughly slammed, and there! If he would have only stopped to listen, he might have heard the distant, muffled cries of his rudely-woken son, as little Johnny was warmed in Mrs Thornton's bedroom. He did not stop, but hurried down the stairs and through the kitchen, streaking towards the back door. There, he collided with Layton, who was now returning from the stables. But Mr Thornton - in his pique of temper - roughly pushed the man aside, with a woeful cry of, "be gone, man!" Now he crossed the yard; the bitter, dry and tautening skin of crisp winter air, biting at his face, and searing his lungs, as he moved about in only shirtsleeves and waistcoat. The jangle of keys, and the infirmary was opened up, so that Mr Thornton might stand inside and stare at the cold, abandoned room.

He blinked against the gloom, and looked about as he saw traces of his wife scattered here; scattered there. The medical equipment only riled him, and he felt such a swell of anger and despair - he felt the world so cruel and unrelenting - that the pressure of grief took hold, and began to crush in on him, until he felt that he would burst. Now came the eruption, and with a fevered, guttural cry, Mr Thornton ripped frantically at the cabinet, and hauled it to the floor. The doctor's tools clattered to the ground, and dirt billowed up and lingered in the air, in taunting spirals; laughing at his fervent anger, with their languid, soothing twists and turns. He grimaced, and threw the examination table onto its side. Now his arms flailed, and tools were rent from the walls; clattering in a cacophony of noise. Another tortured cry, and he fairly stamped on all that lay about him; determined to destroy what had taken from him so cruelly; what had caused him to censure his wife when she was so lately grieving; what had sparked in her, those unforgivable, painful words.

Such a noise could never go unheard - for there was much crashing of furniture, the splintering of wood, the clang of metal, the breaking of glass vials, and the tortured cry of a fully-grown man, fairly brought to his knees - and not knowing what might cause the outburst, but caring just the same, Higgins came running, and pulled up short at the sight of the cool, collected Master, gone quite mad with grief.