'It is not my fault, but my misfortune, that I am homeless,' said Jack, looking the girl full in the face. And before his intense eyes her countenance fell. 'I understand you,' he said. 'The word was said with intention to hurt. But it hurts me only so far as it shows me what your intention was.' 'Did I hurt you?' asked Winefred, turning crimson. Then: 'I am sorry.' But the expression of regret came too late, Jack had already walked away. CHAPTER XXXVI TO BATH How Jack Rattenbury came to Bath must now be told. Jack had found work, or it had been found for him. Whilst Winefred had been settling into new quarters at Bath he had been finding a temporary home and occupation at Beer. It had come about in this way. He had gone to Mrs. Jose, at Winefred's suggestion, and told her his difficulties, and that kind-hearted woman had induced her brother, James Ford, or, as he was locally termed, Captain Ford, to give him employment in the Beer quarries. These are excavations extending for a great distance underground in a fine-grained stone composed of carbonate of lime, that cuts like cheese, but hardens on exposure to the air. The Beer quarries are no scar and disfigurement to the landscape. They produce but little refuse, and that little is rapidly overrun with grass. In the face of a cliff of white rock gape square openings, and these lead to a labyrinthine underground world, where piers of stone support the upper beds, and every block that is extracted serves for building purposes. The quarries have been worked during many centuries. From them houses, cathedrals, have been built, and yet in outward appearance they are insignificant. Jack was not employed as a common quarryman, but was given a stool in the office. No sooner was it settled between him and Captain Ford that he was engaged, than he started for Bindon, as in duty bound, to thank Mrs. Jose for her intervention in his favour. But as he passed out of the village of Axmouth he saw the farmer's wife in a tax-cart driving down the road with Winefred at her side, and behind was an arched trunk, covered with hair and traced with brass-headed nails, attached to the back of the cart by ropes. As Mrs. Jose approached he noticed how her fresh face beamed with yellow soap and good-nature. She saw him at once, and drew up. 'Well, Jack, my boy!' 'I have come to thank you,' said he, patting the rough cob. 'You have done me a real good turn, Mrs. Jose, and if your eyes could look down into my heart as they can into sea-water, you would see true gratitude at the bottom.' 'Like a sea-anemone, open and asking for more,' said Winefred.