"Certain sure," the other answered with astonishing vehemence. "It's Ruth. She won't give me ne'er a chance."
The Colonel touched him in the dusk.
"Bad luck," he muttered. "She'll come round."
It was an hour later and quite dark when he rounded the shoulder of Beau-nez and turned into the great coombe, lit only by the windows of his own house shining out against Beau-nez.
Walking briskly along the cliff, turning over eternally the question whether England would be true to herself, he was aware of somebody stumbling towards him, talking to himself, probably drunk. The Colonel drew aside off the chalk-blazed path to let the other pass.
"A don't know justly what to make on't," came a broad familiar accent.
"Why, it's fight or run away," replied the Colonel, briskly. "No two twos about it."
A sturdy figure loomed up alongside him.
"Then it's best run away, A reckon," answered the other, "afore worse comes on't. What d'you say, Colonel?"
The darkness drew the two men together with invisible bonds just as an hour before it had drawn the Colonel and Ernie.