"I'm glad to see you here, Mrs. Trupp," he said with slight inevitable patronage.
"I'm often here," she answered, smiling.
"Ah," said the Archdeacon. "I've missed you."
She could not tell him that this was because she avoided the church when he and his fellow-priests were ministering there.
"I love the atmosphere," she said.
"Thank-you. It is nice, I think," he answered with a little bow; taking to himself, with childish ingenuousness, the credit for the conditions that six centuries of prayer and worship had created.
An hour later Mrs. Trupp was face to face with Ruth's mother in the kitchen of Frogs' Hall.
Hard by, the church-bell tolled for evening service. Through the open window came the noise of homing rooks drifting up the valley from the Haven; and under the hedge on the far side the Brooks a cow bellowed.
It was Mrs. Boam who began.
"I allow you've come to tell me about our Ruth," she said at last.