"I would like to get off on Tuesday morning if possible."
"Do you mean——" she began.
"I shall have to clear out sooner or later, Ruth," he interrupted, "and the sooner the better."
"Then you have decided to go abroad, Ralph?" And her face became very pale.
"What else can I do?" he asked. "I really have not the courage to settle down at St. Ivel Mine at fourteen shillings a week, even if I were sure of getting work, which I am not."
"And I don't want you to do it," she said suddenly, with a rush of tears to her eyes.
"In a bigger country, with fewer restrictions and barbed wire fences, I may be able to do something," he went on. "At worst, I can but fail."
"I hoped that something would turn up here," she said, after a long pause.
"So did I, Ruth; and, indeed, until this morning things looked promising."
"Well?"