And so the two walked back to the village, the afternoon sun,
which had now shattered the lowering clouds, gilding and
glorifying their two faces, Jack stopping at Mrs. Hicks's to
change his clothes and Ruth keeping on to the house, where he was
to join her an hour later, when the two would have a cup of tea
and such other comforts as that young lady might prepare for her
water-soaked lover.
CHAPTER XXI
If ten minutes make half an hour, then it took Jack that long to
rush upstairs, two steps at a time, burst into his room, strip off
his boots, tear off his wet clothes, struggle into others jerked
from his wardrobe, tie a loose, red-silk scarf under the rolling
collar of his light-blue flannel shirt, slip into a grey pea-
jacket and unmentionables, give his hair a brush and a promise,
tilt a dry hat on one side of his head and skip down-stairs
again.
Old Mrs. Hicks had seen him coming and had tried to catch him as
he flew out the door, hoping to get some more definite news of the
calamity which had stirred the village, but he was gone before she
could reach the front hall.
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