"So—I am afraid—did I."
"Yes?"—and again they laughed together.
"My poor parent! . . . She assured me that her duty to the Family was her armour of proof. Hark! She's calling again."
They found Lady Caroline impatient in the verandah. Ruth, to avoid speech with her, walked away to the waggon. Farmer Cordery stood at the horse's head, and Mrs. Harry beside the step, ready to mount and take the reins.
But for some reason Mrs. Harry delayed to mount. "Is it you?" she said vaguely and put out a hand, swaying slightly. Ruth caught it.
"Are you ill?"
They were alone together for a moment and hidden from the farmer, who stood on the far side of the horse.
"Nothing—a sudden giddiness. It's quite absurd, too; when I've been as strong as a donkey all my life."
Ruth asked her a question. . . . Some word of woman's lore, dropped years ago by her own silly mother, crossed her memory. (They had been outspoken, in the cottage above the beach.) It surprised Mrs. Harry, who answered it before she was well aware, and so stood staring, trembling with surmise.
"God bless you!" Ruth put out an arm on an impulse to clasp her waist, but checked it and beckoned instead to Diana.