Her interest in the Vandon cottages, and the schools, and the new pump, had been most natural up to this time.

It had served to bring them together; but now the use of these things was past, and yet he observed, with incredulity at first and astonishment afterwards, that she clung to them more than ever.
What mattered it for the moment whether the pump was put up or not, or whether the cottages by the river were protected from the floods?
Of course in time, for he had promised, a vague something would be done; but why in the golden season of love and plighted faith revert to prosaic subjects such as these?
Some men are quite unable to believe in any act of a woman being genuine.

They always find out that it has something to do with them.

If an angel came down from heaven to warn a man of this kind of wrath to come, he would think the real object of her journey was to make his acquaintance.
Ruth saw the incredulity in Dare's face when she questioned him, and her heart sank within her.

It sank yet lower when she told him one day, with a faint smile, that she knew he was not rich, and that she wanted him to let her help in the rebuilding of certain cottages, the plans of which he had brought over in the summer, but which had not yet been begun, apparently for the want of funds.
"What you cannot do alone we can do together," she said.
He agreed with effusion.