Then he disappeared into the wood. In another moment the swift thud-thud-thud of a motor-bike starting up was heard.
Ruth listened.
"He ain't coming back," said Ern comfortably.
"Ah," Ruth answered, unconvinced. "You don't know him. You don't know Alfs." She put out her hand towards him in that brave and gracious way of hers. "I'm glad you come though, Ern," she said.
Ernie's eyes filled with tears, as he caught her fingers.
"There!" he said. "He couldn't hurt you. He ain't no account, Alf ain't."
She answered soberly.
"No, he couldn't hurt me—not my body leastways. But I was like to ha killed him."
A little breeze stirred the willows. The turban on the ground flapped and fluttered like a winged bird. Then it opened suddenly and discovered a jagged flint, wrapped in its folds. Ruth took it out and tossed it into the stream.
"It aren't pretty, I knaw," she said. "But life is life; and Alfs are Alfs; and you never knaw."