The next day being Sunday, all the characters in this story had time for meditation. Ruth and Ralph walked to Veryan that they might worship once more in the little chapel made sacred to them by the memory of father and mother. Ruth had great difficulty in keeping back the tears. How often she had sat in that bare and comfortless pew holding her father's hand. How she missed him again. How acute and poignant was her sense of loss.
She never once looked at her brother. He sat erect and motionless by her side, but she doubted if he heard the sermon. The thought of the coming separation lay heavy upon him as it did upon her.
On their way back Ruth plucked up her courage and told Ralph of Sam Tremail's proposal the previous afternoon.
Ralph stopped short for a moment, and looked at her.
"Now I understand why you have been so absent-minded," he said at length. "I was afraid you were fretting because I was going away."
"If I fretted, I should try and not let you see," she answered. "You have enough to bear already."
"The thought of leaving you unprotected is the hardest part," he said.
"Would it be a relief to you if I accepted Sam Tremail's offer?" she questioned.
"Supposing you cared for him enough, it would be," he replied. "Sam is a good fellow by all accounts. Socially, he is much above us."
"I have nothing against him," she answered slowly, "nothing! And I am quite sure he meant all he said."
"I neither like him nor dislike him. But he offers me protection and a good home."
"To be free from worry is a great thing," he answered, looking away across the distant landscape; and then he thought of Dorothy Hamblyn, and wondered if love and romance were as much to a woman as to a man.
"Yes, freedom from worry is doubtless a great thing," she said, after a long pause, "but is it the greatest and best?"
But she waited in vain for an answer. Ralph was thinking of something else.
William Menire got up early on Monday morning and helped to tidy up the shop before breakfast. He was not sorry that the working week had begun again. Work left him very little time for brooding and introspection. He had been twice to church the previous day, but he could not remember a word of the sermons. His own thoughts had drowned the voice of the preacher.