"Not as I'd ha blamed you if you had," said Ruth relaxing ever so little. "It's not your fault I'm put to it and shamed afore em all."
The bitterness of the position in which Ern had placed her was eating her heart away. That noon for the first time she had taken the three elder children to the public dinner for necessitous children at the school. Anne Caspar who had been there helping to serve had smirked.
When Joe saw that the weight of her anger was turned against Ernie and not him, he admitted his fault.
"A may ha done wrong," he said. "But A acted for the best. Didn't want to see you in young Alf's clutches."
"You bide here," Ruth said, "and keep house along o little Alice. I'll be back in a minute."
Hatless and just as she was, she marched up to the Manor-house.
"You were right, 'M," she told Mrs. Trupp. "It were Joe. He just tell me. Only I didn't knaw nothin of it."
"It'll never do for you to be in his debt, Ruth," said the lady.
"No," Ruth admitted sullenly.
Mrs. Trupp went to her escritoire and took out sixteen shillings. Ruth took it.