Thereafter mother and son, by tacit consent, avoided each other in the steep streets of Old Town; and when Ernie called next Saturday he found the kitchen-door locked against him. He was not surprised, nor indeed greatly grieved. His heart was high and very steady as he turned into his father's study. The winter had tried the old man, who was no longer now able to take the hill as formerly. Instead the pair dawdled along to Beech-hangar; and there, sitting among the tree-roots, under the fine web of winter beech-twigs, Ernie told his father the essential fact about his love. "I've lost her, dad," he said in his simple way. The old man's blue eyes, that seemed to brighten as his body dulled, shone on him mysteriously. "Feel for her," he said, reaching out his hands like a blind man. "You'll find her." He added after a pause. "I don't think she's far." Ernie chewed a grass-blade. "I shall find her," he said with quiet confidence, "because my heart ain't fell down--and won't." The old man was still blind and feeling. "Spin," he said. "Then pounce." Ernie nodded. "That's it, and sooner or later my fly'll fall into the web." "It must," said the other, "if you keep on spinning till you cover the uttermost parts of heaven and earth." His father's words, as always, made a deep impression on Ernie's suggestible mind. Ruth was not far: dad had said so; and dad knew. Next day was Sunday. He determined to walk over the hill to Aldwoldston to see what he could find. True, Madame at the Hotel had told him that the girl had not gone home; but did Madame know? He started early, passed Moot Farm, where the turkey-cocks, stately and with spreading tails, played that they were peacocks, and disdained him for a vulgar fellow in spite of old acquaintance. It was February, and the beeches in the coombe at the back of Ratton Hall had not yet begun to warm and colour with the rising sap. The feel of the turf beneath his feet, the glimpse of shrouded waters beyond the Seven Sisters, uplifted and inspired him as of old. He could conquer; he could find. Descending the long slope into Cuckmere, he crossed the road at the racing-stables, took the hill again, and marched along, his head in the sky, and a song on his lips, to greet that of the lark pouring down on him from the unbroken dimness of the heavens. It was still early as he dropped down the bare bleak flank of Wind-hover, scrawled upon with gorse; and came over the cultivated foot-hills into the valley, bright with brooks and the narrow Ruther that winds like a silver slug down the green-way towards the sea. He crossed the stream by a white hand-bridge, passed along an upraised path under an avenue of willows, across the open field called Parson's Tye; up the narrow chapel-lane between back-gardens and high walls, into Aldwoldston High Street, curling narrow as a defile between crowding houses, yellow-washed, brown-timbered, amber-tiled.