When Ruth's time came, Ernie sat in the kitchen, shaken to the soul, and listening to the feet in the room above. It was a dirty night, howling, dark and slashed with rain. Outside in the little dim street that ran below the Kneb on which loomed the shadowy bulk of the parish-church, solid against the cloud-drift, stood the doctor's car. Once Ernie went to the rain-sluiced window and saw Alf with his collar turned up crouching behind the wheel. Ernie went out into the flapping night. "Ere, Alf!" he said hoarsely. "We can't go on like this. Tain't in nature. After all, we're brothers." The two had not spoken since the one had possessed the woman the other had desired. Alf now showed himself curiously complacent. "I am a Christian all right," he confided to his brother; and added with the naïve self-satisfaction of the megalomaniac, as he shook hands: "I wish there was more like me, I do reelly." "Come in, then," said Ern, who was not listening. "I can't abear to see you out here such a night as this and all." Alf came in. The two brothers sat over the fire in the kitchen, Alf uplifted, his gaitered legs crossed. He looked about him brightly with that curious proprietory air of his. "You've a decent little crib here, Ern, I see," he said. "None so bad," Ernie answered briefly. "Done it up nice too," the other continued. "Did your landlord do that now?" "No; me and Ruth atween us." "Ah, he'll raise your rent against you." "Like em," said Ern. "They're all the same." Somebody moved overhead. Ern, stirred to his deeps, rose and stood, leaning his forehead on the mantel-piece, his ears aloft. "This is a bad job, Ern," said Alf--"a shockin bad job." "It's killin me," Ern answered with the delicious egoism of the male at such moments. There was a lengthy silence. Then Alf spoke again--casually this time. "She never said nothin to you about no letter, did she?" "It's burned," replied Ernie curtly. Alf glanced at his brother sharply. Then, satisfied that the other was in fact telling the truth, he resumed his study of the fire. "Not as there was anythink in it there shouldn't have been," he said complacently. "You can ask anyone." He was silent for a time. Then he continued confidentially, leaning forward a little--"When you see her tell her I'm safe. May be that'll ease her a bit." Ernie came to himself and glowered. "What ye mean?" he asked. Alf cocked his chin, knowing and mysteriously. "Ah," he said. "You just tell her what I tell you--_Alf won't let on; Alf's safe_. Just that. You'll see." There was a stir and a movement in the room above: then the howl of a woman in travail. Ern was panting. Silence succeeded the storm. Then a tiny miaowing from the room above came down to them. Alf started to his feet. "What's that?" he cried. "My child," answered Ernie deeply, lifting a blind face to the ceiling.