Two hours later, as he left the house, Ernie Caspar turned the corner of Borough Lane, and came towards him, lost in dreams. The Colonel waited for him. There was about the old Hammer-man that quality of forlornness which the Colonel had noted in him so often of late. He took his place by the other's side. They walked down the hill together silently until they were clear of the houses, and Saffrons Croft lay broad-spread and fragrant upon their right. In the growing dusk the spirits of the two men drew together. Then Ernie spoke. "It's not Joe, sir," he said. "He's all right, Joe is." The Colonel did not fence. "Are you sure?" he asked with quiet emphasis. "Certain sure," the other answered with astonishing vehemence. "It's Ruth. She won't give me ne'er a chance." The Colonel touched him in the dusk. "Bad luck," he muttered. "She'll come round." It was an hour later and quite dark when he rounded the shoulder of Beau-nez and turned into the great coombe, lit only by the windows of his own house shining out against Beau-nez. Walking briskly along the cliff, turning over eternally the question whether England would be true to herself, he was aware of somebody stumbling towards him, talking to himself, probably drunk. The Colonel drew aside off the chalk-blazed path to let the other pass. "A don't know justly what to make on't," came a broad familiar accent. "Why, it's fight or run away," replied the Colonel, briskly. "No two twos about it." A sturdy figure loomed up alongside him. "Then it's best run away, A reckon," answered the other, "afore worse comes on't. What d'you say, Colonel?" The darkness drew the two men together with invisible bonds just as an hour before it had drawn the Colonel and Ernie. "What is it, Burt?" asked the Colonel, gently. He felt profoundly the need of this other human being standing over against him in the darkness, lonely, suffering, riven with conflicting desires. Joe drew closer. He was sighing, a sigh that was almost a sob. Then he spoke in the hushed and urgent mutter of a schoolboy making a confession. "It's this, Colonel--man to man. Hast ever been in love with a woman as you oughtn't to be?"