"I've left my heart behind me," she said. "I shall never love a man again--not like that. All that's left of me has gone to the child." "Ruth," said the elder woman, "d'you know that most of the successful marriages I know are based on friendship? It's very few who pull off the Big Thing. And those that do often come to grief. They expect too much, and are disappointed." She found herself, as always, talking to Ruth as she would have done to a girl of her own kind. There was no sense of class or caste between the two. They met simply on the ground of common humanity. "Aye, I could be his friend," said Ruth slowly. "And more than his friend. There's none like Ernie. I'd give him all I got to give. That's a sure thing. I'd be that grateful to him and all." "And there's little Alice," continued Mrs. Trupp. "That's just it," cried Ruth passionately. "It's little Alice is all I think on. It's that makes me afear'd--lest I should be unfair to Ernie. See, I do love Ernie. You ca'an't help it. He's that good and unselfish. And I wouldn't hurt him for all the world--not if it was ever so." "He's the kind of man who needs a woman to help him along the way," said Mrs. Trupp. Ruth peeped at the other warily, even a thought jealously. What did she know of Ernie's weakness? For Ruth, if she was not in love with Ernie, felt for him that profound protective sense which the mother-woman invariably feels for a man who has shown himself dependent on her. "Cerdainly it aren't as if he were one of the ambitious ones," she mused. "Cerdainly not. All for himself and gettin to de top, no matter about no one else." "Like his brother," said Mrs. Trupp crisply. "Aye," Ruth agreed, "like Alf. That's where it is. Both brothers want me, only they want me different. Alf thought I was his for the askin. Because I made my mistake he thought I was anybody's wench--to be had for money. That's where the difference lays atween him and Ernie. You could trust Ernie anywheres, a woman could." "And that's the whole battle from the woman's point of view," said Mrs. Trupp, rising. "To trust your man. To know that, wherever he is and whatever he's doing, he won't let you down." After her visitor had left, Ruth took the child and walked up River Lane to the butcher's at the top. Marching thoughtfully between high walls, she met Miss Eldred, the daughter of a neighbouring Vicar. Miss Eldred was an austere and lonely young woman, with a reputation for learning and advanced views, who took no part in the church life of the locality, and was even said to be a rationalist. She and Ruth had known each other from childhood, and had always been somewhat antipathetic. As the young woman coming down the lane saw the young woman coming up it, babe perched on shoulder, her lavender-grey eyes, remote and almost smouldering, kindled suddenly. The veil fell from before her face, and the spirit behind the clouds shone forth in wistful radiance.