When he returned an hour later with little Alice she was unusually tender to him, though her eyes were rainwashed. He on his side was clearly ashamed and stiff accordingly. He said nothing; instead he was surly in self-defence.
To make amends he sat up with the child that night and the next.
"Shall you save her, sir?" asked the scare-crow on the third morning.
"I shan't," replied the doctor. "Her mother may."
Next day when Mr. Trupp came he grunted the grunt, so familiar to his patients, that meant all was well.
When the corner was turned Ern did not apologise to Ruth, though he longed to do so; nor did she ask it of him. To save himself without undergoing the humiliation of penance, and to satisfy that most easily appeased of human faculties, his conscience, he resorted to a trick ancient as Man: he went to chapel.
Mr. Pigott who had stood in that door at that hour in that frock-coat for forty years past, to greet alike the sinner and the saved, welcomed the lost sheep, who had not entered the fold for months.
"I know what this means," he said, shaking hands. "You needn't tell me. I congratulate you. Go in and give thanks."
Ern bustled in.
"I shall come regular now, sir," he said. "I've had my lesson. You can count on me."