H.E. Bates Companion

A doctor's wife goes to get food for a homeless woman at her church but on returning finds her gone. At church, as she ponders the relevancy of the hymns and offerings, and at home, when she learns of the vagrant's suicide, she experiences sadness and self-reproach, to the bafflement of her husband. One of several early tales dealing with religion. In The Bermondsey Book (March-May 1927), Day's End and Other Stories (1928), Country Tales (1938), Country Tales (1940). Reprinted in Seven Years' Harvest (London: Heinemann, 1934).