“Yes, and you have no concern therein,” said Maseden firmly.
“Who’s keeping guard?” inquired Madge. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Alec has had an attack of the fidgets ever since he saw that empty coracle,” said Nina. “But I’m the worst sort of sentry, anyhow, and you would be no better, dear, so let us snooze selfishly, and be ready to help the men in to-morrow’s hard work.”
“I’ve never before known a verse from the Bible break up a meeting like that,” commented Sturgess thoughtfully when the girls had gone. “Somebody might have heaved a tin of kerosene into the fire, the way Nina jumped up.”
“The words may have evoked distressing memories,” said Maseden incautiously.
“As how?”
Sturgess’s alert brain was very wide awake at that moment, but Maseden contrived to extricate himself.
“That famous phrase of Ruth’s contains the essence of an otherwise uninteresting Biblical story,” he said. “If Ruth had not been so faithful to her mother-in-law we might never have heard of her.”
“Was Naomi her mother-in-law?”
“Yes. Ruth, herself a widow, married Boaz.”