Ernie with that love of ritual which characterises his class continued with the smile-less intensity of a child. "Yes, to have and to hold ... her and her children ... for me ... till I return." Joe was obviously staggered. His eyes roved the floor; his head weaved to and fro. "Here, I didn't bargain for this," he muttered. Ruth thrust out her hand almost sternly, as though to silence him. He took it grudgingly, and then Ern's. "A suppose A'll do ma best," he said, and slouched out hasty as a schoolboy escaping from the schoolroom. When he was gone Ruth laid both hands on Ernie's shoulders and looked at him her eyes dazzled with laughter and tears. "You should never ha done it, Ern!" she said. "Never!" "There was nothing for it only that," Ern answered sturdily. "It's a world of wolves. Somebody must see to you while I'm away." She withdrew her hands and stood before him, defenceless now, humble, beautiful, appealing. "Ern," she said with a little sob, "will you take me up along to the Ambush--our last night and all?" He looked at her steadily. Then he caught her hand. "All right, old lass," he said. They had not visited their couching-place that summer and the romance of old and intimate association was on them both now as they came to the tryst in the scented dusk. The gorse, unpruned, had grown over the track that led to the heart of the covert. Ernie forced his way through, Ruth following him, anchored jealously to his hand. Behind her the bushes closed, blocking the way; and she was glad. Her eyes were on the shoulders of her man, wistful still but triumphant; and she found herself smiling secretly as she marked how bride-like she felt, how warm and shy and tremulous. In this great hour the tides of her ebbing youth had returned with power and the desert bloomed afresh. The world-catastrophe had wrought a miracle. Spring had quickened the stale summer air. Here at the parched noon was a hint of dawn, dew-drenched and lovely. Waist-deep in the dark covert, the man and woman stood on the summit of the hill, under the sky, the sea spread like a dulled shield beneath them. It was already nine o'clock; a perfect evening of that never-to-be-forgotten August. The sun had long gone down behind the Seven Sisters. In Paradise a nightjar was thrumming harshly. Below in the coombe the lights of Undercliff began to twinkle. On the Head Brangwyn-like figures were moving heavily. A night-shift was working there behind windy flares, screened by tarpaulins from enemy eyes at sea. Ernie knew what they were doing. "They're building a battery to protect the new wireless station against aircraft attack," he told Ruth. "That dark thing in the road's a fire-engine to dowse the flares if a night attack's made."