Towards evening I espied Westmacott entering a distant field, and something in me gave a fierce leap of exultation. I then realised the practical difficulties of the position. Here was I, left on guard, but physically quite unable to grapple with the wiry man should he lay hands on me, or on his wife. I thought for an instant of summoning Amos, but as instantly rejected the idea: the final act must lie between Westmacott, Ruth, and myself. Had I been alone, I would have chanced his violence; as it was, I must consider the woman. I ran quickly into the house, up to my room, and brought down my service revolver. When I came into the kitchen carrying this weapon, Ruth, who was sitting there sewing, as placidly, I swear, as she had sat sewing in her own kitchen the first time I had seen her, looked at my loaded hand and up into my face with a grave, inquiring surprise. I reassured her. Her husband, I told her, was coming across the fields and would doubtless insist on seeing her, and considering the nature of the man I had thought it best to have an unanswerable threat ready to hand. With that muzzle we would keep him at bay. Ruth rose very quietly and took the weapon from me. I had no idea of resistance. Malory himself could not have felt more definitely than I that the words we were to speak, the actions we were to perform, were already written out on a slowly unwinding scroll. She asked me to leave her alone with her husband; to my feeble protest, made by my tongue, but barely seconded by the vital part of my being, the part so intensely conscious, yet at the same time so pervaded by a sense of trance and unreality,—to that feeble protest she replied, bitterly enough that she had faced him many times before and with my weapon on the table beside her would face him with additional confidence and security. She had already taken it from me, and now laid it on the table, speaking as one does to a child from whom one has just taken a dangerous toy. She smiled as she spoke, so serenely that I felt sure she had accepted the revolver merely for the sake of my peace of mind. She charged me to keep the children away, should I see them drawing near to the house, and with that injunction she took me kindly by the shoulders and turned me out into the garden.