"We got no friends," she said sullenly. "We shall lose em all over this. O course we shall, and I don't blame em. A fair disgrace on both of you, I call it. You're lucky not to have to do a stretch. And as to Alf, they've sack him from sidesman over it, and he'll never forgive us."
They were walking slowly back to the cottage, the man hang-dog, the woman cold.
Outside the door she paused.
"All I know is this," she said. "If you're out again through your own fault I'm done with it, and I'll tell you straight what I shall do, Ern."
She was very quiet.
"What then?"
"I shall leave you with your children and go away with mine." She stood with heaving bosom, immensely moved. "I ca-a'nt keep the lot. But I can keep one. And you know which one that'll be."
Ernie, the colour of dew, went indoors without a word.
The rumour that Alf had been dismissed from his position as sidesman at St. Michael's, owing to the incident in the Goffs, was not entirely true, but there was something in it.
The Archdeacon had his faults, but there was no more zealous guardian of the fair fame of the Church and all things appertaining to her.