The clink of cans told him he had timed himself aright. At the far end of the walk was a thick bower over which the leaves of a vine, already turning, scrambled. From the rich darkness of this bower Ruth now emerged, marching solemnly down the path. Her yoke was on her shoulders, her pails swinging, clanking, slopping. She walked very deliberately, dressed in the worn earth-coloured gabardine that fell in nobly simple lines about her figure. Her eyes were down, her face grave; and the rakish orange turban wound about her head contrasted strangely with the noble seriousness of her face. Ernie breathed deep as he watched her coming towards him down the grass-walk under pergolas crowned with roses and honeysuckle. From his covert his eyes followed her with tender content, for he thought she was not aware of his presence. But he was wrong. A few yards from him, with a graceful dipping motion of the knees, she lowered her shining cans to the ground, disengaged them, and came to him, paler than her wont, the chains of the yoke she still carried now swinging free. He opened the gate and approached her. "Ernie," she said with a little sigh, "I'll marry you if you wish it." She paused. Her bosom was heaving, her eyes shuttered. Then she raised her head. "And I'm sure I thank you very much--me and baby." Hard by a young fig-tree grew against the wall, low-branched and with long-fingered leaves. He drew her beneath the shelter of it, and gathered her slowly in his arms like a sheath of corn. He kissed her patient lips, her eyes; his tears bedewed her cheek; his hand was in hers, and she was kneading it.... Both hands were rough with toil. Then she opened her eyes; and down in the brown deeps of them shone a lovely star. "I pray I done you no wrong, Ern," she said, and smiled at him through mists. Tenderly he removed the yoke from her shoulders and placed it on his own. Then he bowed to the burden, and taking the road trudged solemnly homeward by her side, the cans clinking and water spilling as he moved. CHAPTER LIX ALF TRIES TO SAVE A SOUL Of course there was trouble: Alf saw to that. It was very seldom he came to Rectory Walk now; but he did come one evening after the news was common property in Old Town. He marched straight into the kitchen, kicked a chair into its place before the fire, and sat down without a word to his mother. It was dusk in there, but Anne could see that he was terribly moved. "What is it?" she asked. "Nothin," Alf answered. "Only my cart's broke." The mother waited for more, grimly amused. "He's done it this time," Alf continued at last. "Who has?" "Old Ern." The epithet of affection roused Anne to swift suspicion. "What's he done then?" Alf chewed the end of a cigarette. "Don't ask me," he said. "Talk o the town!--I could 'ide me ead with shyme." He looked up suddenly and stared his mother blankly in the face. "Little better nor a common you know."