Dear Madam,—If your Committee can help Mrs. Caspar in the Moot, board for herself and four children, I will pay rent of same.
Yours faithfully,
Anne Caspar.
Later just as twilight began to fall Ruth went up to Rectory Walk. Anne was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the little house amid her tobacco plants, sweet-scented in the dusk, a shawl drawn tight about her gaunt shoulders.
Ruth halted on the path outside.
"I do thank you, Mrs. Caspar," she said, deep and quivering.
The elder woman did not look at her, did not invite her in. She tugged at the ends of her shawl and sniffed the evening with her peculiar smirk.
"Must have a roof over them, I suppose," she said. "Even in war-time."
The visit of Mrs. Trupp and Mrs. Lewknor to the Registrar at Lewes had proved entirely satisfactory. No marriage had taken place on the day in question, so examination disclosed. Mrs. Lewknor reported as much to her husband on her return home that evening.
The Colonel grinned the grin of an ogre about to take his evening meal of well-cooked children.
"We must twist Master Alf's tail," he said; "and not forget we owe him one ourselves."