"He didn't say. Bad time, I reckon. Only don't tell anyone, Joe, for dear's sake, else they'll stop my credit at the shop—and I'll be done."
Her eyes filled and she bit her lip.
"Four of em," she said. "And nothing a week to do it on—let alone the rent" ...
She might hush it up; but the news spread.
Alf, with his ears of a lynx, was one of the first to hear. For a moment he hovered in a dreadful state of trepidation. It was a year and a half since he had stalked his white heifer, bent on a kill, only to be scared away by the presence of that mysterious old man he had found at her side in the heart of the covert. But his lust was by no means dead because it had been for the time suppressed. Ruth had baffled him; and Alf had not forgotten it. Ern possessed a beautiful woman he longed for; and Alf had not forgiven him.
Perhaps because he had beaten down his desire for so long, it now rushed out ravening from its lair, and drove all else before it. Throwing caution to the winds, he came stealing along like a stoat upon the trail, licking his lips, wary yet swift. First he made sure that Ernie was out, looking for a job of work. Then he came down the street.
Ruth met her enemy blithely and with taunting eyes. In battle she found a certain relief from the burthen of her distress. And here she knew was no question of pity or consideration.
"Monday's your morning, isn't it?" she said. "Come along then, will you, Alf? And you'll see what I got for you."
Alf shook a sorrowful head, studying his rent-book.
"It can't go on," he said in the highly moral tone he loved to adopt. "It ain't right." He raised a pained face and looked away. "Of course if you was to wish to wipe it off and start clean——"