"Ay: you reckernise the taste of it, I dessay. But you'd not come back to it, not you. . . . It must be nigh upon dinner: my belly still keeps time like a clock. M'ria shall cook us a few clams. Snuffin' won't bring it back like clams." He chuckled, supposing he had made a joke. Her mother had caught sight of them from the window where she sat as usual watching the sea. As they climbed the slope, picking their way along loosely-piled wreckwood, she opened the door and stood at first fastening a clean apron and then rubbing her palms up and down upon it, as though they were sweaty and she would dry them before she shook hands. "That's so, M'ria!" the old man shouted cheerfully, as his eyes made out the patch of white apron in the doorway. "It's our Ruth, all right-- come to pay us a visit!" He bawled it, at close quarters. This was his way of conveying intelligence to the crazed brain. Mrs. Josselin, awed by her daughter's appearance--a little perhaps, by her loveliness; more, belike, by her air of distinction and her fine dress (though this was simple enough--a riding suit of grey velvet, with a broad-brimmed hat and one black feather)--withdrew behind her back the hand she had been wiping, and stood irresolute, smiling in a timid way. It was horrible. Ruth stretched out her arms lest in another moment her mother should bob a curtsy. "Mother--mother!" She took the poor creature in her arms and held her, shivering a little as she sought her lips; for Mrs. Josselin, albeit scrupulously clean, had a trace of that strange wild smell that haunts the insane. Ruth had lived with it aforetime and ceased to notice it. Now she recognised it, and shivered. "Surely, surely," said the mother as soon as the embrace released her. "I always said you would come back, some day. In wealth or in trouble, I always told grandfather you would come back. . . . That hat, now--the very latest I'll be bound. . . . And how is your good gentleman?" "Mother! Please do not call him that!" "Why, you ha'n't quarrelled, ha' you?" "Indeed, no." "That's right." Mrs. Josselin nodded, looking extremely wise. "Show a good face always, no matter what happens; and, with your looks there's no saying what you can't persuade him to. All the Pococks were good-looking, though I say it who shouldn't: and as for the Josselins--" "Sit down, mother," Ruth commanded. She must get this over, and soon, for it was straining at her heart. "Sit down and listen to what I have to tell. Afterwards you shall get me something to eat; and while you are dishing it--dear mother, you were always briskest about the fireplace--we will talk in the old style." "Surely, surely." Mrs. Josselin seated herself on the block-stool. "You remember the promise? In three years--and yesterday the three years were up--I was to come back and report myself." "Is it three years, now? Time _do_ slip away!"