"Ruth," he said, "however did you come into service at the Hohenzollern?" Both of them had unconsciously resumed the accent of the town as they returned to the town. Ruth told him simply and without reserve. She had been maid to Squire Caryll's sister at the Dowerhouse in Aldwoldston. Her mistress had been taken ill, and Mr. Trupp had ordered her to Beachbourne. "We was going to the Grand," Ruth told him. "But it was full. So cardingly we went to the Hohenzollern till the Grand could have us. And once there we stayed there two years--till she died. See Mr. Trupp likes the Hotel for his patients. There's the lawns straight onto the sea; and the Invalids' Corner by the anonymous hedge he got Madame to build." Madame had throughout been kind, so kind--first to her mistress and then to her; for after Miss Caryll's death Ruth had broken down from over-strain. The Manageress and Mr. Trupp had pulled her through. Then when she came round, Madame, who was clearly fond of the girl, had kept her on as personal maid, "cosseting me," said Ruth with a little laugh, "like a bottle-lamb." At Easter, when the crush came, and Ruth was quite recovered, Madame had asked her to go to the Third Floor to help, saying she would take her back if the girl didn't like it. "I went tempory to oblige Madame," Ruth explained. "I'd do a lot for her. She's been that kind." Ruth had been there some weeks now, too lazy or too shy to take the step that would involve another change. "I don't ardly like to see you there, Ruth," said Ernie gently. "I don't really." She lifted her face to him in the darkness. "Where?" "The Third Floor." Ruth turned her face to him. Her wall was down. She was talking intimately almost as a woman to a woman she trusts. "I don't hardly myself," she said in the musing voice of the disturbed. "The gentlemen are that funny. Seem scarcely respectable, some of em. And the couples too. Might not be married the way they go on. London, I suppose." He glanced at her covertly. She met his eyes--so frank, so fearless. What a man of the world Ernie felt beside this white ewe-lamb straying far from the fold in the hollow of its native coombe! They were skirting now the fosse of the Redoubt. Before them on the shore rose the great Hotel, like a brilliantly lighted mausoleum, blocking out a square patch of stars. They made towards it. "Ruth," said Ernie quietly, "if I was you I'd get Madame to change you. Second Floor's more your sort. More steadified. There's a Bishop there now and his wife and three-four daughters or so. Go to bed at ten, and get up at seven. I can hear em all a-snorin in chorus like so many hoggets in a stye when I take the lift down last turn at night." "Hap I will," said Ruth thoughtfully. "Madame'd take me back herself, only she's got a German maid now, and I wouldn't do anything to put Madame out for worlds."