The answer she had sought had been given her. Comforted and strengthened she rose, went to the door and unlocked it. Joe had strolled a yard or two down the street. She did not call him, but retired to await him in the kitchen, leaving the door a-jar.
In a few minutes his feet approached slowly. She heard him brush his boots in the passage, and turn the key of the outer door behind him. Then he entered.
An immense change had been wrought in him since last they had met. The bull-moose of Saffrons Croft had given place to a man, humbled, solemn, quiet, the heir of ages of self-discipline and the amassed spiritual treasure of a world-old civilisation.
He stood afar off, with downward eyes. Then he held out both arms to her.
"Ruth, A've come to claim thee--or say good-bye."
She gripped the mantelpiece but did not answer. Her head was down, her eyes closed.
"Then it's goodbye, Joe," she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognised it herself.
He dropped his hands, darkening.
"And who'll keep thee and children now Ern's gone?"
A note of harshness had crept into his voice.
She murmured something about the Government.
He laughed at her hardly.
"The Government! What's Government ever done for the workers? They make wars: the workers pay for em. That law's old as the capitalist system. What did Government do for women and children time o South Africa?--Left em to the mercy o God and the ruling class. If your children are to trust for bread to the Government, heaven help em!"
Ruth knew that it was true. She remembered South Africa. In those days there had been a neighbour of theirs at Aldwoldston, the wife of a ploughman, a woman with six children, whose husband had been called up. Ruth had only been a girl then; but she remembered that woman, and that woman's children, and her home, and that woman's face.
"There's the ladies," she said feebly.
Joe jeered.
"You know the ladies. So do I. Might as lief look for help to the Church straight off."
"There's One Above."
"Aye, there's One Above. And He stays there too and don't fash Himself over them below--not over you and me and our class any road."
His tone that had been mocking became suddenly serious.
"Nay, there's nobbut one thing now atween you and them and Work-house."
She peeped, faintly inquisitive.
"What's that?"
"The arm of a Lancasheer lad."
There came into her eyes the tenderness tinged with irony of the woman amused at the eternal egoism of the male. He noted the change in her, thought she had relaxed, and came in upon her, instantly, appealing now--
"Coom and live with me, brother and sister, the lot of you ... A swear to thee a wunna touch thee."
She laughed at him, low and tender.
"Never do, Joe--never!" shaking her head and swallowing.
"Why not then?"
"There's far over much nature in us--two valiant great chaps like you and me be."
Then little Alice entered and went to Joe, who put a sheltering arm about her.
"Her and me and you!" he said huskily to Ruth. "Us three against the world! Laugh at em then!"
Ruth motioned to the child to go on up to bed. She went; and the two striving creatures were left alone once more.
"Ern bequeathed thee to me."
"Aye, but he didn't rithely knaw you, and he didn't rithely knaw me eether."
He caught at the straw.
"Then you do loov me?"
She shook her head, and the tears from her long lashes starred her cheek.
"Nay, Joe: Ern's my man--always was and always will be."
He stood before her, firm on his feet, and solid as a rock, his fists clenched, his eyes on her, brilliant, dark, and kindly. She felt the thrill of him, his solidity, his sincerity, above all his strength, and thrilled to him again.
"A'm the mon for thee," he said.
She did not answer. In her ears was the roar of cataracts.
"Thoo dursena say me nay."
The words came from far off, from another world. Wavering like a flame in the wind, she heard but could make no reply.
"Thoo canna."
Then a voice spoke through her, a voice that was not hers, coming from far away over waste seas, a voice she had never heard before and did not recognise.
"I can--Lord Jesus helpin me."
At that the mists began to float away. She saw more clearly now. The worst perhaps was over.
"You want a mon with a purpose in his life."
Ah, how well he knew her!
"A mon who knows what he wants to do and means to do it.--And you must have it or dee. The bairns arena enough for a woman like you."
He was putting forth the whole of his huge strength to overwhelm her: she was aware of it and of her own weakness.
"A've got a purpose. You can help me fulfill it--none else, only you. Time was A thought A could go on alone. You learnt me better. A canna. God didna make mon that way--not this mon any gate. Mon needs Woman for his work. A need you."
Quietly she was gathering her forces.
"Ern's my man, Joe," she repeated. "I need him; and none other."
Baffled for the moment, her assailant paused in his assault.
"And has Ern got a purpose in his life?"
"He has now."
"What's that then?"
"What you said at the Citadel that Sunday--the war, and what it stands for."
"The war won't last for ever. What when that's over?"
"He'll come back a made man."
He regarded her with a kind of sardonic pity.
"He'll never coom back--never."
She lifted her eyes to his, steadfast and tender.
"Hap he'll not, Joe. If so be he doosn't, I shan't grudge him. A soldier in a soldier's grave. Liefer that than he should linger here now. He's such a battler, Ern is. That's why I love him."
He took the blows she dealt him, unflinching.
"You don't loov, Ern."
"I'm learning to."
His lips curled in scorn.
"You don't know what loov is. See here!--This is loov." He tapped his outspread palm, as often when lecturing.
"Ern's ma familiar friend--has been for years. He trusts me--look at what he did that last night. And sitha! A'm a mon men do trust. That's ma reputation--earned too. A never sold a pal yet, big or little. And now--A'll betray ma own mate behind his back; ma mate that's gone fightin ma battles in the cause for which A've lived twenty years; ma mate that trusts me--and all for the sake of loov." The great fellow was trembling himself now. "Am A a rotter?--You know A'm none. Am A a mon? You know A am. The measure o ma sin is the measure o ma loov. Judge for yourself."
He was battening down the furnace behind steel-doors; but she could hear the roar of the flames.
"That's loov. A'll lose all to win all; and A've more than most to lose. A'll lose ma life to save ma soul--and that's you. Are you for it?--Was a time A thought nowt o women: now A think o nought but the One Woman.... Now then!--Take it or leave it!--Choose your path!--Will you throw a loov like that away--the loov of a mon--for what?--A chap you don't trust, a chap you can't respect, a chap who's let you and the children down and will again, a chap you're never like to see again--a feeble feckless sot, and son of a sot--"
She put both hands to her ears. He wrenched them fiercely aside and held them. She stood before him, her hands imprisoned in his, her eyes shut, on her face the look of one awaiting the blows about to rain down in her defencelessness.
"I may ha doubted him once, Joe. But I knaw him better now. May he forgive me--and you too; all the wrong I done you both. I knaw him, and myself, better than I did a while back. And now he's won me, I'll never loose him, never."
She spoke with a passion which convinced even that stubborn lover.
He drew back, and she knew from the sound of his breathing that she had beaten him.
"Then you was playin wi me?"
He brooded over her, sullen and smouldering.
She put out her hands to him with something of the appeal of a child.
"Hap a while back when you called me so strong I did answer you--more'n I should--not knawin you cared so much, Joe. And may be I thart if Ernie saw there was anudder man around hap it'd ginger him jealous and help us along. I was fighting for my home ... and my children ... and for him, Joe.... And when a woman's fighting..."
She broke off and gasped.
He met her remorselessly.
"Then yo've chosen ... It's goodbye."
She laid her hands upon his shoulders.
"But not like that.--Kiss me, Joe."
She lifted her face.
Slowly he dropped his hands upon her arms.
And as they stood thus, entwined, the window opened quickly from outside, the curtains parted, and a voice low at first and rising to a horrible scream shrilled,
"Caught em at it!--Mr. Spink.--Come and see for yourself then! Mr. Spink."
