The old lady looked about her, a little bustled.
"Could you tell me the way to the tram?" she asked the chauffeur.
He touched his hat and smiled.
If Alf had a soft spot in his heart, it was for old women.
"This is your tram, ma," he said, and helped her in.
A fortnight later the same car stood at the same door, when Ruth emerged, her baby in her arms.
It was dusk, and she did not see the chauffeur, who leaned out towards her.
"Would you come up in front alongside me?" he said. "I put your box inside."
Ruth obeyed.
They drove through the gathering shadows in the sweet-scented June evening, past Ratton and Polefax, all along the foot of the Downs, the Wilmington Giant with his great staff gleaming wan and ogre-like on the hillside, and at the Turn-pike, just where the spire of B'rick church is seen pricking out of trees, turned for the gap and ran down the valley towards the Haven.