The answer she had sought had been given her. Comforted and strengthened she rose, went to the door and unlocked it. Joe had strolled a yard or two down the street. She did not call him, but retired to await him in the kitchen, leaving the door a-jar.

In a few minutes his feet approached slowly. She heard him brush his boots in the passage, and turn the key of the outer door behind him. Then he entered.

An immense change had been wrought in him since last they had met. The bull-moose of Saffrons Croft had given place to a man, humbled, solemn, quiet, the heir of ages of self-discipline and the amassed spiritual treasure of a world-old civilisation.

He stood afar off, with downward eyes. Then he held out both arms to her.

"Ruth, A\'ve come to claim thee—or say good-bye."

She gripped the mantelpiece but did not answer. Her head was down, her eyes closed.

"Then it\'s goodbye, Joe," she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognised it herself.

He dropped his hands, darkening.

"And who\'ll keep thee and children now Ern\'s gone?"

A note of harshness had crept into his voice.

She murmured something about the Government.

He laughed at her hardly.

"The Government! What\'s Government ever done for the workers? They make wars: the workers pay for em. That law\'s old as the capitalist system. What did Government do for women and children time o South Africa?—Left em to the mercy o God and the ruling class. If your children are to trust for bread to the Government, heaven help em!"

Ruth knew that it was true. She remembered South Africa. In those days there had been a neighbour of theirs at Aldwoldston, the wife of a ploughman, a woman with six children, whose husband had been called up. Ruth had only been a girl then; but she remembered that woman, and that woman\'s children, and her home, and that woman\'s face.

"There\'s the ladies," she said feebly.

Joe jeered.

"You know the ladies. So do I. Might as lief look for help to the Church straight off."

"There\'s One Above."

"Aye, there\'s One Above. And He stays there too and don\'t fash Himself over them below—not over you and me and our class any road."

His tone that had been mocking became suddenly serious.

"Nay, there\'s nobbut one thing now atween you and them and Work-house."

She peeped, faintly inquisitive.

"What\'s that?"

"The arm of a Lancasheer lad."

There came into her eyes the tenderness tinged with irony of the woman amused at the eternal egoism of the male. He noted the change in her, thought she had relaxed, and came in upon her, instantly, appealing now—

"Coom and live with me, brother and sister, the lot of you ... A swear to thee a wunna touch thee."

She laughed at him, low and tender.

"Never do, Joe—never!" shaking her head and swallowing.

"Why not then?"

"There\'s far over much nature in us—two valiant great chaps like you and me be."

Then little Alice entered and went to Joe, who put a sheltering arm about her.

"Her and me and you!" he said huskily to Ruth. "Us three against the world! Laugh at em then!"

Ruth motioned to the child to go on up to bed. She went; and the two striving creatures were left alone once more.

"Ern bequeathed thee to me."

"Aye, but he didn\'t rithely knaw you, and he didn\'t rithely knaw me eether."

He caught at the straw.

"Then you do loov me?"

She shook her head, and the tears from her long lashes starred her cheek.

"Nay, Joe: Ern\'s my man—always was and always will be."

He stood before her, firm on his feet, and solid as a rock, his fists clenched, his eyes on her, brilliant, dark, and kindly. She felt the thrill of him, his solidity, his sincerity, above all his strength, and thrilled to him again.

"A\'m the mon for thee," he said.

She did not answer. In her ears was the roar of cataracts.

"Thoo dursena say me nay."

The words came from far off, from another world. Wavering like a flame in the wind, she heard but could make no reply.

"Thoo canna."

Then a voice spoke through her, a voice that was not hers, coming from far away over waste seas, a voice she had never heard before and did not recognise.

"I can—Lord Jesus helpin me."

At that the mists began to float away. She saw more clearly now. The worst perhaps was over.

"You want a mon with a purpose in his lif............