Ern stood above her, dogged and determined.
"Say! why can't you marry me then?" he persisted.
As though in answer she dandled the child. Then she lifted her face to his, and in her eyes there was the flash and challenge of a love so fierce that Ernie felt himself suddenly afraid.
"I doosn't regret it," she said. "Never!—I'd goo through it all again for her sake and glad. She's worth it—every dimple of her!" And she laid her lips upon the child's with a passion that was almost terrible.
"You done no wrong, whoever did," mumbled Ernie, awed still by this eruption of reality. "'Twarn't no fault o yours—or hers for the matter of that."
Ruth rose and tossed her baby over her shoulder with an easy careless motion that frightened Ernie as much as it thrilled him. The child lying now face down, and doubled like a sack, sucked her thumb and regarded him with the blue eyes of her father.
Together they walked across the field towards the yellow-daubed cottage with the steep brown roof and mass of honeysuckle over the door, standing with its back to the tumbled houses on the hill behind.
"Mind, Ruth. I won't take no," insisted Ernie. "You need protection. A young woman like you do."
"Never!" said Ruth.
Ernie, unconscious of his companion's irony, ploughed on his ox-like way.