CHAPTER LII.

CHAPTER LII.SITTING AT THE WINDOW.RUTH JESSUPhad no courage to attempt another interview with her bridegroom. Every morning she made an excuse to visit "The Rest" with fruit from her own garden, always accompanied by the choicest flowers arranged with a touch of loving art, which he began to read eagerly, now that he knew from whom they came. Once or twice she met Sir Noel, who, for the first time in his life, seemed to avoid her. The pleasant greeting which her rare beauty and brightness had been sure to win from him, no longer welcomed her; but was enchanged for a grave bow, and sometimes—so her tender conscience read the change—by a look of reproach. Lady Rose she purposely shunned; partly because a sense of deception hung heavily upon her, and partly because of the restless jealousy, which sprang out of her own intense love, that admitted no other worshipper near her idol.Mrs. Mason, too, had taken to lecturing her, making her discourse offensive by constant allusions to young Storms, and the household arrangements which must soon be made at the farm. No denial or protest left the least impression on the good dame, who had made upher mind that such things were to be expected from over-sensitive girls like Ruth, and must not be set down against them as falsehoods, being, at the worst, only a forgivable exaggeration of natural modesty. Besides, she had taken an opportunity to speak to the young man himself, who had laughed knowingly when she told him of Ruth's denial of all engagement between them, and replied that a woman of her age ought to be old enough to understand that a girl's "no" always meant "yes" when the time came. For his part, he was only waiting for the lease to be signed. Anyway, Ruth would set no day till that was done, and no blame either. So if Mrs. Mason wanted to do her goddaughter a good turn and stop people from talking, she had better help that on. Everybody knew that she had great influence with Sir Noel, and the lease was all that was wanted to make things go smoothly between him and her goddaughter.Against all this evidence it is not wonderful that the housekeeper went quietly on with her preparations, and gave no heed to Ruth's denials, tearful and even angry as they often were.All this was very hard on Ruth, who found herself miserably baffled at every point. All her friends seemed to have dropped away from her. Their very affection was turned into mockery by persistent disbelief of all she said. She still hovered about the great house each morning as a frightened bird flutters around its nest, but with little chance of satisfaction, for, except the housekeeper's room, all the establishment seemed closed to her.One day the poor girl saw her husband on the flower-terrace, moving slowly up and down among the roses, and a cry of such exquisite delight broke from her, that Mrs. Mason rose from her easy-chair and came to the window, curious to know what had called it forth.What was going on? What had she seen to brighten her face so? Had the sullen old peacock at last spread himself, or was she wondering at the great bloom of roses? Something out of the common had happened to set that pale face into such a glow. Would Ruth tell her what it was?No, Ruth could not tell her, for the color had all died out of her face while the old woman was talking, and the glorious show of flowers had turned to a misty cloud, in which a beautiful young woman was floating, angel-like, toward her husband, and he went to meet her.Lifting both hands to her face, Ruth shut out the sight, and when Mrs. Mason insisted on questioning her, turned upon the good woman like a hunted doe, and, stamping her foot, declared, with great tears flashing in her eyes, that nothing was the matter. Only—only so much watching made her nervous, hysterical, some people might call it; but that did not matter. Laughing and crying amounted to the same thing. She would go home. There nobody would trouble themselves about her.With this reckless burst of feeling, Ruth flung herself away from the outstretched arms of her half-frightened godmother, and ran home, sobbing as she went. Would this miserable state of anxiety never end? Must she go on forever with this awful feeling gnawing at her heart? Would this longing for protection, this baffled tenderness, ever meet with a response? Ah, she understood now the depths of God's punishment to poor Eve, when the angel was placed at the gates of Paradise to keep her out. Was Lady Rose chosen to guard her Paradise, because of the sin through which she had entered it? How like a glorious angel she looked in the soft whiteness and tenderblue of garments that floated around her like a cloud. How bright and rich were the waves and curls of her hair! Surely no angel ever could be more beautiful!This passion of feeling, which combined so many elements of unrest, was thrown into abeyance when Ruth got home; for, looking up, with her hand on the gate, she saw her father sitting at the chamber-window waiting for her. It was the first time he had crossed the floor since his illness. The thought that he had made the dangerous attempt alone struck her with dismay."Oh, father, how could you?" was her first anxious question as she entered the room. "Have I been gone so long that you got impatient?""No, no! I felt better, and took a longing to look on the garden. I never was so many days without seeing it before," said the old man. "I think it has done me good, child.""I hope so. I hope so, father!""See how well I walk. Never fear, lass. The old father will soon be about again."The gardener got up from his chair with some difficulty and walked across the room, waving Ruth aside when she offered to support him."Nay, nay, let me try it alone," he said, with feeble triumph. "To-morrow I shall be getting down-stairs. I only hope the young master is as strong.""Oh, father, he is better; I saw him on the terrace this morning.""Ah, that is brave. But how did he look? Thin, like me?""No, not like you, father. He was always more slender, you know; but I think he was pale.""Of course, of course. He has a hard bout. Not this, though, and I'm thankful for it."Jessup put one hand to his wounded breast as he spoke, and Ruth observed, with anxiety, that he breathed with difficulty."You must not try to walk again, father," she said, arranging his pillows and wiping the drops from his forehead. "It exhausts you.""Nothing of the kind, lass. I shall be all the stronger in an hour. Why, at the end of three days, I mean to walk over to 'The Rest,' and have a talk with the young master.""Oh, how I wish you could!""Could? I will. I thought he would have answered my letter by a word, if no more. But I have no doubt he is o'er weak for writing. Anyhow, we shall soon know."Again Ruth breathed freely. The father was right. In a few days she would hear directly from her husband—perhaps see him. If he wished it, as she did, nothing could keep him away, now that he had once gone into the open air. Surely she was brave enough to bear her burden a little longer.It was growing dark, now. Jessup had been at rest most of the time; for, in his feeble state, crossing that room had wearied him as no journey could have done in health.Ruth had been restless as a caged bird all day. Her load of apprehension regarding her father had been relieved only that the keener trouble, deep down in her woman's heart, should come uppermost with new force. Those two persons among the roses on the terrace haunted her like one of those pictures which the brain admires and the heart loathes. Was not this man her husband? Had he not sworn to love her, and her alone?What right had Lady Rose by his side? How dared she look into those eyes whose love-light was all her own only a few weeks ago? Alas! those weary, weary weeks! How they had dragged and torn at her life! How old she had grown since that circlet of gold had been hidden in her bosom!Ruth was very sad that evening,—sad, and strangely haunted. It seemed to her that, more than ever, she was waiting for some great catastrophe. Black clouds seemed gathering all around her; difficulties that she had no strength to fathom or combat seemed to people the clouds with ruin. Yet all was vague and dreary. The poor child was worn out with loneliness and watching.All at once she heard a footstep. Not the one she dreaded, but the slow, faltering walk of some person who hesitated, or paused, perhaps, for breath.Up to her feet the girl sprang, leaned forward, and listened, holding down her heart with both trembling hands, and checking the breath on her parted lips.The door opened softly."Ruth!"She sprang forward, her arms outstretched, a glorious smile transfiguring her face."Oh, my beloved! My husband!"She led him to the little couch on which so many bitter tears had told of her misery. He was worn out with walking, and fell upon it, smiling as she raised his head from the cushions, and pillowed it on her bosom, folding in his weakness with her young arms."It may kill me, but I could not keep away. Oh, my darling, how I have longed for a sight of you!" said the young husband.Ruth gathered him closer in her arms, and, forgetting everything but his presence, kissed the very words from his smiling lips."Ah, you have come. It is enough! It is enough!"Something startled her; a faint noise near the door. She lifted her head, and there stood her father, looking wildly upon her—upon him.Before she could move or speak, the old man swayed, uttered one faint moan, and fell across the threshold.CHAPTER LIII.DEATH.WHILERuth had thought her father resting from his dangerous exertions, that poor man had been aroused into keen wakefulness which brought back all his old powers of thought. His brain had been cleared from the dull mists of fever, and the haze that had gathered over his memory was swept away by the physical effort he had made. He began to see things clearly that had seemed fantastic and dreamlike till then. The events of that night, when he received his wound, came out before him in pictures. The great cedar of Lebanon, the face he had seen for a moment gleaming through the darkness, everything came to his memory with the vividness of thoughts that burn like fire in an enfeebled brain, driving out sleep and everything but themselves.Slowly and surely dreams melted away into nothingness. For, in the state of nervous excitement whichsometimes comes with returning powers, after long mental wanderings, all his ideas were supremely vivid.One by one he arranged past events in his mind. From the time that he met young Storms in the park on his way home that fatal night, and received the first cruel idea of his daughter's shame, for which he cast the young man to the earth in his rage, as we wrestle with a mad dog, which leaves its poison in our veins. He traced events down to the moment when a flash of fire seemed to pass through him under the cedars, and he awoke, helpless, in the little chamber whose walls enclosed him now. Then he remembered the letter he had written to young Hurst; hours before, he could not have given its import, or have repeated a word of it. But now, it came before him like the rest, a visible substance. He saw the very handwriting, uneven and irregular, such as he had left in copy-books years before, and it rose up clearly in judgment against him now. Reading these great, uncouth letters in his mind, he groaned aloud.That which, in his fever, he had resolved to keep secret forever, he had written out in a wild effort to spare anxiety to another, suffering like himself. What if that letter should fall into the hands of an enemy? It conveyed a charge. It hinted at something that might bring terrible suspicions on the young man who had been dear to him almost as his own child. The evil he had tried to prevent had been drawn ominously near by his own hand.The old man lay there, wounding himself with the most bitter reproaches. Into what mad folly had the fever thrown him!William Jessup started up in bed, as these thoughtscame crowding to his brain. He would at once redeem the evil that had been done. That letter should be revoked.Yes, he would do it that moment; then, perhaps, he might sleep, for the intense working of his brain was more than he could endure. It was like the rush and thud of an engine, over which the master-hand had lost control.Ruth Jessup's little desk lay open on the table close by the bed, where she had been using it. Pen and paper lay upon it, inviting the sick man to act at once. He was still wrapped in a long flannel dressing-gown, and his feet were thrust into slippers, which the hands of his child had wrought with scrolls of glittering bead-work and clusters of flowers—soft, dainty slippers, which made no noise as he dropped his feet over the bedside, and drew the table toward him with hands nerved to steadiness by a firm resolve.Truly, that great hand shook, and the pen sometimes leaped from the paper as some sharp, nervous thrill for a moment disabled it. But for a time excitement was strength, and to that was added a firm will: so the pen worked on, linking letter to letter, and word to word, until the white surface of a page was black with them. Then he turned the sheet over, pressed it down with both hands, and went on until his task was done.By this time his eyes were heavy with fatigue, and a dusky fever-flush burned on his cheeks. He folded the sheet of paper, which was well written over, and directed it on the blank side to "Walton Hurst," then he pushed the table aside, leaned back upon the pillow, and gave way to the exhaustion which this great effort had brought upon him. Still, the poor man could not sleep, thebrain had been too much disturbed. While his body lay supine, and his hands were almost helplessly folded in his flannel dressing-gown, those deep-set eyes were wide open, and burning with internal fires.Thus the sun went down, and a glory of crimson gold and purple swept through the window, slowly darkening the room.All this time, Ruth was below, sad and thoughtful, gleaning a little pleasure from the fact that all was silent overhead, which indicated a long, healthful sleep for her father, after his first effort to cross the room. She was very careful to make no noise that might disturb the beloved sleeper, and thus sat hushed and watchful, when the sweet shock of her husband's presence aroused her.This noise had reached the chamber where Jessup lay."She is below," he thought, struggling up from his bed. "This very hour she shall carry my letter to 'The Rest.' Will she ever forgive me for doubting her, my sweet, good child? Ah, how did I find heart to wrong her so?"With the letter clasped in one hand, and that buried in the pocket of his dressing-gown, the old man moved through the dusky starlight that filled his room, and down the narrow stairs slowly, for he was weak, and softly, for his slippers made no noise. He paused a moment in the passage, holding by the banister, then, guided by an arrow of light that shot through the door, which was ajar, stood upon the threshold, struck through the heart by what he saw—wounded again and unto death by the words he heard."It was true! it was true!" The words said to him by that vile man in the park that night was a fact thatstruck him with a sharper pang than the rifle had given. His child—his Ruth, his milk-white lamb—where was she? "Whose head was that resting upon her bosom? Whose voice was that murmuring in her ear?"The pain of that awful moment made him reel upon his feet, a cry broke to his lips, bringing waves of red blood with it. His hands lost their hold on the door-frame, and his body fell across the threshold.For a moment two white, scared faces looked down upon the fallen man, then at each other, dazed by the sudden horror. Then Ruth sank to the floor, with a piteous cry, lifted his head to her lap, and moaning over it, besought her father to look up, to speak one word, to lift but a finger, anything to prove that he was not dead.Hurst bent over her, feeble and trembling. He had no power to lift the old man from her arms, but leaned against the door-frame paralyzed."Oh, wipe his lips, they are so red! Help me to lift him up," cried Ruth, with woeful entreaty. "He is not dead, you know. Remember how he fainted before, but that was not death. Help me! Oh, Walton, help me, or something dreadful may come to him."The agony of this pleading aroused all that remained of strength in the young husband's frame. He stooped down, and attempted to remove the old man from the girl's clinging arms."No, no!" she cried. "I can take care of him best. Bring me some brandy—brandy, I say! You will find it in—in the cupboard. Brandy, quick—quick, or he may never come-to!"Hurst went to the closet, brought forth a flask of brandy, and attempted to force some drops between those parted lips, through which the teeth were gleaming with ghastly whiteness."He cannot drink! Bring a glass. Father! father! try to move—try to swallow. It frightens me so! Ah, try to understand! It frightens me so!"All efforts were in vain. Hurst knelt down, and, with a hopeless effort, felt for the pulse that would never beat again."His head is growing heavier. See how he leans on me! Of course, he knows—only—only—Oh, Walton! There is no breath!" whispered the poor girl. "What can I do—what can I do?""Ruth, my poor child, I fear he will never breathe again.""Never breathe again! Never breathe again! Why, that is death!""Yes, Ruth, it is death," answered the young man, folding the dressing-gown over the body, reverently, as if it had been the vestment of some old Roman."Then you and I have killed him," said the girl, in a hoarse whisper. "You and I!"The young man made no answer, but kindly and gently attempted to remove the body that rested so heavily upon her."Not yet—oh, not yet! I cannot give him up! He might live long enough to pardon me.""If good men live hereafter, and you believe that, Ruth, he knows that concealment is all the sin you have committed against him," answered Hurst, gently."But that has brought my poor—poor father here," said the girl, looking piteously up into the young man's face."Ruth—Ruth, do not reproach me! God knows I blame myself bitterly enough," he said, at last."Blame yourself? Oh, no! I alone am to blame. Itwas I that tempted you. I that listened—that loved, and made you love me. Father—father! Oh, hear this! Stay with us! Oh, stay in your old home long enough for that! He is not in fault. He never said a word or gave me a look that was not noble. He never meant to harm me, or—or offend you. I—I alone am the guilty one.""Ruth, Ruth! you are breaking my heart!" whispered Hurst."Breaking your heart! Oh, I have done enough of that, miserable wretch that I am!" answered the girl, speaking more and more faintly. "If I could only make him understand how sorry I am; but oh, Walton! I think he is growing cold. I have tried to warm him here in my arms, but his cheek lies chilly against mine, and my—my heart is cold as—as his."The head drooped on her bosom; her arms slackened their hold, and fell away from the form they had embraced, and she settled down by her father, lifeless, for the time, as he was—for William Jessup was dead. A great shock had cast him down with his face in the dust. Blasted, as it were, by a sudden conviction of his daughter's shame, he had gone into eternity as if struck by a flash of lightning.CHAPTER LIV.THE GARDENER'S FUNERAL.A FUNERALmoved slowly from the gardener's house. Out through the porch, under the clustering vines he had planted, William Jessup was carried by his own neighbors, with more than usual solemnity. His death had been fearfully sudden, and preceding circumstances surrounded it with weird interest. That which had been considered a mysterious assault, which no one cared to investigate too closely, now took the proportions of a murder, and many a sun-browned brow was heavy with doubt and dread as his friends stood ready to carry the good man out of the home his conduct had honored, and his hands had beautified.Many persons out of his own sphere of life were gathered in the little cottage, seeking to console the poor girl, who was left alone in it, and to show fitting respect to the dead. Among these were Sir Noel and his household. Lady Rose came, subdued and saddened with womanly pity. Mrs. Mason, full of grief and motherly anxiety, took charge within doors, pausing in her endeavors every few moments to comfort Ruth, whose sorrow carried her to the very brink of despair.Many people came from the village, where Jessup had been very popular, and among them old Storms, who, with his son, kept aloof, looking darkly on the crowd that passed into the dwelling.No one seemed to remark that the young heir of "Norston's Rest" was absent; for it was known that he had taxed his strength too far, and was now paying thepenalty of over exertion by a relapse which threatened to prostrate him altogether.In the throng of villagers that came in groups through the park was the landlady of the public house, and with her Judith Hart, who was too insignificant a person for criticism, or the eager excitement of her manner might have arrested attention. But safe in her low estate, the girl moved about in the crowd, until the house was filled, and half the little concourse of friends stood reverently on the outside waiting for the coffin to be brought forth. Then she drew close to young Storms, who stood apart from his father, and whispered, "You beckoned me—what for?"Storms answered her in a cautious whisper. Nodding her head, the girl replied:"But after that, will you come to the public, or shall I—""To the Lake House, after the funeral," was the impatient rejoinder."I will be there, never fear."With these words Judith glided off through the crowd, and passing around the house, concealed herself in the thickets of blooming plants in which the garden terminated.From this concealment she watched the funeral train file out from the porch and wind its way down the great chestnut avenue on its course to the churchyard. She saw Ruth, the last of that little household, following the coffin with bowed head, and footsteps that faltered in her short walk between the porch and the gate. Wicked as the girl was, a throb of compassion stirred her heart for the young creature whom she had so hated in her jealous wrath, but could pity in such deep affliction.Slowly and solemnly the funeral procession swept from the house, and passed, like a black cloud, down the avenue. The park became silent. The cottage was still as death, for every living thing had passed from it when the body of its master was carried forth. Then holding her breath, and treading softly, as if her sacrilegious foot were coming too near an altar, Judith Hart stole into the house. The door was latched, not locked. She felt sure of that, for, in deep grief, who takes heed of such things? A single touch of her finger, and she would be mistress of that little home for an hour at least. Still her heart quaked and her step faltered. It seemed as if she were on the threshold of a great crime, but had no power to retreat.She was in the porch; her hand was stretched out, feeling for the latch, when something dragged at her arm. A sharp cry broke from her; then, turning to face her enemy, she found only the branch of a climbing rose that had broken loose from the kindred vines, whose thorns clung to her sleeve."What a fool I am!" thought the girl, tearing the thorny branch away from her arm. "What would he think of me? There!"The door was open. She glided in, and shut it in haste, drawing a bolt inside."Bah! how musty the air is! With the shutters closed, the room seems like a grave. So much the better! No one can look through."The little sitting-room was neatly arranged. Nothing but the chairs was out of place. Judith could see that, through all the gloom."Not here," she thought. "Nothing that he wants can be here. Her room first: that is the place to search."CHAPTER LV.SEARCHING A HOUSE.UPthe crooked staircase the girl turned and shut herself into a little chamber, opposite that in which Jessup had suffered his days of pain—a dainty chamber, in which the windows and bed were draped like a summer cloud, and on a toilet, white as virgin snow, a small mirror was clouded in like ice. Even the coarse nature of Judith Hart was struck by the pure stillness of the place she had come to desecrate, and she stood just within the threshold, as if terrified by her own audacity. "If he were here, I wonder if he would dare touch a thing?" she thought, going back to her purpose. "I wish he had done it himself; I don't like it."She did not like it; being a woman, how could she? But the power of that bad man was strong upon her, and directly the humane thrill left her bosom. She was his slave again."Something may be here," she said, sweeping aside the delicate muslin of the toilet with her rude hands. "Ladies keep their choice finery and love-letters in such places, I know; and she puts on more airs than any lady of the land. Ah, nothing but slippers and boots that a child might wear, fit for Lady Rose herself, with their high heels and finikin stitching. Such things for a gardener's daughter! Dear me, what is the use of a toilet if one cannot load it with pincushions, and things to hold ear-rings, and brooches, and such like! Nothing but boots—such boots, too—under the curtains, and on the top a prayer-book, bound in velvet. Well, this is something."A small chair stood by the toilet, in which Judith seated herself, while she turned over the leaves of the book, and, pausing at the first page, read, "Ruth Jessup, from her godmother.""Oh, that's old Mason. Not much that he wants here. No wonder the lass is so puffed up. Velvet books, and a room like this! Well, well, I never had a godmother, and sleep in a garret, under the roof. That's the difference. But we shall see. Only let me find something that pleases him here, and this room is nothing to the one he will give me. Thin muslin. Poh! I will have nothing less than silks and satins, like a born lady. That much I'm bent on."Flinging down the prayer-book, without further examination, Judith proceeded to search the apartment thoroughly. She examined all the dainty muslins and bits of lace, the ribbons and humbler trifles contained in the old-fashioned bureau. She even thrust her hand under the snowy pillows of the bed, but found nothing save the pretty, lady-like trifles that awoke some of the old, bitter envy as she handled them."Now for the old man's room. Something is safe to turn up there," she thought, conquering a superstitious feeling that had kept her from this room till the last. "It's an awful thing to ask of one. I wonder how he would feel prowling through a dead man's chamber like a thief, which I shall be if I find papers, and taking them amounts to that; but he would give me no peace till I promised to come."The room from which Jessup had been carried out was in chilling order. A fine linen sheet lay on the bed, turned back in a large wave as it had been removed from the body when it was placed in the coffin. A hot-houseplant stood on the window-sill, perishing for want of water. The stand upon which Ruth's desk was placed had been set away in a corner, and to this Judith went at once. She found nothing, however, save a few scraps of paper, containing some date, or a verse of poetry that seemed copied from memory; two or three sheets of notepaper had a word or two written on them, as if an impulse to write had seized upon the owner, but was given up with the first words, which were invariably, "My dear—" The next word seemed hard to guess at, for it never found its way to paper; so Judith discovered nothing in her pillage of Ruth's desk, and the failure made her angry."He'll never believe I looked thoroughly, though what I am to find, goodness only knows. Every written paper that I lay my hands on must be brought to him. That is what he said, and what I am to do. But written papers ain't to be expected in a house like this, I should say. How am I to get what isn't here, that's the question? Anyway, I'll make a good search. Not much chance here, but there's no harm in looking."Judith flung the closet-door open, and peered in, still muttering to herself, "Nothing but clothes. Jessup's fustian-coat. Poor old fellow! He'll never wear it again. His Sunday-suit, too, just as he left it hanging. No shelf, no—Stay, here is something on the floor. Who knows what may be under it?"Judith stooped down, and drew a long garment of gray flannel from the closet, where it seemed to have been cast down in haste. It was Jessup's dressing-gown, which had been taken from him after death."Nothing but the poor old fellow's clothes," shethought, growing pale and chilly, from some remembrance that possessed her at the sight of those empty garments. "I will throw the old dressing-gown back, and give it up. The sight of them makes me sick. Well, I've searched and searched. What more can he want of me?"Judith Hart gathered up the dressing-gown in her hands, and was about to replace it, when a folded paper dropped to her feet. She snatched the paper, thrust the dressing-gown back to the closet, and turned to a window, unfolding her prize as she went."His writing. The same great hooked letters, the same hard work in writing! 'To Walton Hurst.' It might be the same, only there is more of it, and the lines ain't quite so scraggly." Even as she talked, Judith held Jessup's letter to an opening in the shutter, and read it eagerly.More than once Judith read the letter that Jessup had written with his last dying strength, at first with surprise deepening into terror as she went on. Then she fell into solemn thoughtfulness. Being a creature of vivid imagination, she could not stand in that death-chamber with a writing purloined from the murdered man's garments in her hand without a shiver of dread running through all her frame.In truth, she was fearfully disturbed, and the very blood turned cold as it left her face when she thrust the paper into her bosom, shrinking from it with shudderings all the time.After this, she remained some minutes by the window, lost in thoughts that revealed themselves plainer than language as they passed over her mobile features.Then a sound, far down in the park, startled her and she left the house absorbed and saddened. It was wellfor her chances of escape that the girl left Jessup's cottage at once; for she was hardly out of sight when a group of neighbors from the funeral cortege came back, haunting those rooms with sorrowful countenances, and striving with great kindness to win the lone girl, thus suddenly made an orphan, from the terrible grief into which she had fallen.CHAPTER LVI.A MOTHER'S HOPEFULNESS.AMONGthe persons who had come to the gardener's funeral old Mrs. Storms was most conspicuous, not only from her high position among the tenants, but because of the relations her son was supposed to hold with the daughter, who was beloved by them all. After the funeral several neighbors offered to stay with Ruth, but in her wild wretchedness she refused them all—kindly, sweetly, as it was in her nature to do, but with a positiveness that admitted of no further urgency.Even Mrs. Mason, who now considered herself as something more than friend or godmother, felt constrained to go away and leave the poor girl to the isolation she pleaded for; though with some little resentment at the bottom of her kind heart.Mrs. Storms was not to be dissuaded from all kindliness so easily. When the neighbors were gone she came into the room where Ruth was sitting, and in a gentle, motherly fashion, sat down by the mourner and strove to comfort her."Come," she said, taking the girl's cold hands in the clasp of her hard-working fingers, "come, lass, and stay with me. This house is so full of gloom that you will pine to death in it. Our home is large, and bright with sunshine. You shall have the lady's chamber, which will be all your own some blessed day, God willing."The good woman caught her breath here, for something like an electric shock flashed through the hands she clasped, and Ruth made a struggle to free herself from the thraldom of kindness that was torturing her."I know—I know this isn't the time to speak of weddings; but you have no mother, and I never had a girl in the house; so if you would only come now, and be company for me—only company for the old woman—it would be better and happier for us all."Ruth did not answer this loving appeal. She only closed her eyes and shuddered faintly. Great emotions had exhausted themselves with her."Be sure, Ruth, it is not my son alone who loves you. From the first I have always looked upon you as my own lass, and a prettier no mother need want, or a better, either.""No, no, you must not say that," Ruth cried out; for the anguish of these praises was more than she could bear. "He thought me pretty—he thought me good, and how have I repaid him? Oh, my father, my poor dead father, it was love for me that killed him!"Mrs. Storms was silent a while. She understood this piteous outcry as a burst of natural grief, and gave it no deeper significance; but she felt the task of comforting the poor girl more difficult than she had imagined. What could she say that would not call forth some newcause of agitation? The subject which she had fondly trusted in seemed to give nothing but pain. Yet no hint had ever reached the woman that the attachment of her son was not more than returned by this orphaned girl. Perhaps Ruth was wounded that Richard was not there in place of his mother. With this possibility in her mind the matron renewed her kindly entreaties."You must not think it strange, dear, that Richard left the funeral without coming back to the cottage. It was that his heart was full of the great trouble, and he would not darken the cottage with more than you could bear. The father, too—for you must think of him as that, dear child—has well nigh broke his heart over the loss of his old friend. He's eager as can be to have a daughter in the house, and will be good as gold to her."Ruth did not listen to the subject of these words, but the kindly voice soothed her. This old housewife had been a good friend to her ever since she could remember, and was trying to comfort her now, as if anything approaching comfort could ever reach her life, fearfully burdened as it was. Still, there was soothing in the voice. So the matron, meeting no opposition, went on:"We must not talk of what is closest to our hearts just yet; but the time will soon come when the old man and I will flit to some smaller home, and you shall have the house all for your two selves. It will be another place then; for Richard can afford to live more daintily than we ever cared for. The garden can be stocked with flowers and made pretty as this at the cottage. The barley-field can be seeded back to a lawn, and that parlor with the oriel window, where the good man stores hisfruit, can be made rarely grand with its pictured walls and carved mantelpiece."Still Ruth did not listen; only a fantastic and vague picture of some dream-like place was passing through her mind, which the kind old neighbor was endeavoring to make her understand. Now and then she felt this hazy picture broken up by a jar of pain when Richard Storms was mentioned; but even that hated name was so softened by the loving, motherly voice that half its bitterness was lost."Tell me," said the matron, "when will you come? I made everything ready this morning before we left, hoping you would go back with us."Ruth opened her great sad eyes, and looked into the motherly face bending over her."You are kind," she said, "so kind, and you were his dear friend. I know that well enough; but I cannot fix my mind on anything—only this: your voice is sweet; you are good, and wish me to do something that I cannot think of yet. Let me rest; my eyes ache with heaviness. I have no strength for anything. This is a sad place, and I am sad like the rest; if you would leave me now, in all kindness I ask it; perhaps the good God might permit me to sleep. Since the night he died I have been fearfully awake, sitting by him, you know. Now—now I would like to be alone, quite alone. There is something I wish to ask of God."Mrs. Storms yielded to this sad pleading, laid the girl's hands into her lap, kissed her forehead and went away, thinking, in her motherly innocence:"The child is worn out, dazed with her great sorrow. I can do nothing with her; but Richard will be going to the cottage, and she loves him. Ah, who could help it,now that he is so manly and has given up the ways that we dreaded might turn to evil! She will listen to him, then John and I will have a daughter."CHAPTER LVII.WAITING AT THE LAKE HOUSE.DURINGthe time that his mother was so kindly persuading Ruth to accept a home with her, Richard Storms was pacing the Lake House to and fro, like a caged animal waiting for its feeder.The triumph of his revenge and his love seemed near at hand now. Before Jessup's death his power was insufficient, his influence feeble, for no one was in haste to take up a wrong which the sufferer was the first to ignore. But now the wound had done its work. A man had been shot to death, and any subject of Her Majesty had the right to call for a full investigation before a magistrate. This investigation the young man had resolved to demand.All that the man wanted now, to complete his power of ruin, was the letter which Judith Hart had found drifting through the shrubbery on the day she had visited "Norston's Rest," at his own suggestion, in order to get a foothold in the establishment and become his willing or unconscious spy, as he might be compelled to use her.That letter was so important to him now that he was ready to do anything, promise anything, in order to get possession of it, and prowling around and around the old Lake House, he racked his brain for some power ofinducement by which he could win it from her, and perhaps other proofs that she might find in the cottage.Thus urged to the verge of desperation, by a thirst for revenge on young Hurst, and the craving love which Ruth Jessup had rejected with so much scorn, the young man awaited with burning impatience the coming of his dupe; for up to this time he had failed in making her entirely an accomplice.Judith came down to the lake in great excitement. Storms saw that, as she turned from the path and waded through the long, thick rushes on the shore, without seeming to heed them."You have found something! I see that in your face," he said, as the girl darkened the Lake House door. "Give it to me, for I never was so eager to be at work. Why don't you speak? Why don't you tell me what it is?"Judith pushed her way into the house and seated herself on the bench, where she sat looking at him with an expression in her eyes that seemed to forbode revolt."Tell me," he said, sitting down by her, "tell me what you have discovered. I hope it is something that will clear the way to our wedding, for I am getting impatient for it. Nothing but the want of that paper has kept me back so long."The strange expression on Judith's face softened a little. Some good was in the girl. The firm hold she had kept on Jessup's dangerous letter had been maintained as much from reluctance to bring ruin on an innocent man as for her own security. On her way from the gardener's cottage, she had taken a rapid survey of the situation, and for the first time felt the courage of possessed power."You are in terrible haste," she said, "as if the paperI have was not enough to win anything you want from Sir Noel.""But you will not trust me with it. You do not love me well enough for that.""I loved you well enough to give up my home, my poor old father, my good name with the neighbors, and become the meanest of servants, only to be near you," answered the girl, with deep feeling; "and I love you now, oh God, forgive me! better, better than my own wicked soul, or you never would have seen me again.""Still you refuse to give me the one scrap of paper that can bring us together," said Storms, reproachfully."If I did give it up what would you do with it?""Do with it! I will take it to Sir Noel, break down his pride, threaten him with the exposure of his son's crime, and wring the lease I want from him, with enough money beside to keep my wife a lady.""But what if I take the paper to Sir Noel, and get all these things for myself?"For an instant Storms was startled, but a single thought restored his self-poise."There is one thing Sir Noel could not give you.""What is that?""A husband that loves the very ground you walk on.""Oh, if I could be sure that you loved me like that.""I do—I do; but how can I wed you without some chance of a living? The old man wouldn't take us in without the new lease, and without more land I can do nothing.""Dick! Oh, tell me the truth now. Is that all the use you mean to make of this paper?""Yes, all! I will swear to it if that will pacify you. The lease, and money, down at the time; for a handsomewife must have something to dash her neighbors with. That is all I want, and that the paper in your bosom will bring me."Judith lifted a hand to her bosom, and kept it there, still hesitating."You do not mean to harm the young gentleman? Oh, Richard, you could not be so bad as that.""Harm him! No! I only want to frighten Sir Noel out of his land and money. If I once gave the paper to a magistrate, it would be an end of that.""So it would," said Judith, thoughtfully. "Besides—besides—""Come, come! Make up your mind, girl!""Swear to me, that you will never show the paper to any one but Sir Noel—never use it against the young gentleman!""Swear! I am ready! If there were a Bible here I would do it now.""Never mind the Bible! With your hand here, and your eyes looking into mine, swear to your promise."Storms gave a returning grasp to the hand which had seized his, and his eyes were lifted for a moment to the bold, black orbs that seemed searching him to the soul; but they wavered in an instant, and returned her gaze with furtive side-glances, while he repeated the oath in language which was profane rather than solemn.After holding his hand for a minute, in dead silence, Judith dropped it, and taking the old portemonnaie from her bosom, gave up old Jessup's first letter, but without a word of the other paper."There! Remember, I have trusted you."Storms fairly snatched the paper from her hand, for the cruel joy of the moment was too much for his caution."Now," he said, with a laugh more repulsive than curses, "I have them all in the dust.""But remember your oath," said Judith, uneasily, for the fierce triumph in that face frightened even her."I forget nothing!" was the bitter answer, "and will bate nothing—not a jot, not a jot."Storms was half way to the door, as he said this, with the paper grasped tightly in his hand."But where are you going?" pleaded Judith, following him. "Is there nothing more to say?""Only this," answered Storms, struck by a shrewd after-thought; "it is better that you leave the 'Two Ravens' at once. It is not from the tap-room of an inn that a gentleman must take his wife."Judith looked at him searchingly. There seemed to be reason in his suggestion; still she doubted him."Where would you have me go, Richard? Back to the old home?"Storms reflected a moment before he answered."It isn't a palace or a castle, like the one you mean to get out of that paper," Judith said, impatient of his silence, "but, poor as it was, you liked to come there, and the old father would be glad and proud to be standing by when we are wedded.""Yes, I dare say he would be that," answered Storms, with an uneasy smile. "Well, as you wish it, the old home is perhaps as safe a place as you could stay in.""But it will not be for long—you promise that?" questioned the girl, anxiously."Not if Sir Noel comes down handsomely, but I must not be bothered while this work is on hand. You will give the landlady warning and go at once. Say nothing of where you are going; or perhaps, as she is sure to askquestions, it is better to speak of London. You can even take the train that way for a short distance, and turn back to the station nearest your home. The walk will not be much.""What, from the station?" said Judith, laughing. "Why the old home is a good twenty miles from here, and I walked it all the way, having no money.""Ah, that was when you were fired with jealousy, and I'll be bound you did not feel the walk. But we must have no more of that. There is money enough to take you home, and something over.""No, no. I shall have my wages," said the girl, drawing back.In her mad love she could leave her home and follow this man on foot without shame, but something of honest pride withheld her from receiving his money."What nonsense!" exclaimed Storms, wondering at the color that came into her face, while he dropped the gold back into his pocket. "But you must give notice at once. We have no time to lose. Now I think of it, how much did the landlady know about you at the 'Two Ravens?'""Nothing. She thinks I came down from London.""Not the name? I cannot remember ever hearing it.""No one but the mistress knew it," said Judith. "My father was of the better sort till misfortune came on him, and I wouldn't drag his name down in that place. I am only known as Judith among the customers.""That is fortunate, and makes your going up to London the thing to say. You can be home to-morrow.""But you will not be long away? You will come?""Surely; three days from this at our old place in theorchard. I do not care to see your father at first. It will be time enough when we can tell him everything. There, now, I must go. You will forget nothing?"Storms held out his hand. Judith took it reluctantly."Are you leaving me now?""Yes, I am going yonder," he answered, waving his hand toward "Norston's Rest."CHAPTER LVIII.SIR NOEL'S VISITOR.ITis not the old man, Sir Noel, but young Storms, who says he must and will see you!""Did the hind send that message to me?""No, Sir Noel, he only said it to me, and impudent enough in him to do it. His message to you was soft as silk. He had important business which you would like to hear of, and could not wait. That was what made him bold to ask," answered the servant, who had been greatly disturbed by the manner of young Storms, who was no favorite at "The Rest.""You can let him come in," said Sir Noel, with strange hesitancy; for over him came one of those chilly presentiments that delicately sensitive persons alone can feel, when some evil thing threatens them. "Let the young man come in."The servant went out of the library, and Sir Noel leaned back in his chair, subdued by this premonition of evil, but striving to reason against it."He has come about the lease, no doubt," he argued."I wish the question was settled. After all, its consequence is disproportionate to the annoyance. I would rather sign it blindly than have that young man ten minutes in the room with me."It was a strange sensation, but the baronet absolutely felt a thrill of dread pass through him as the light footsteps of Richard Storms approached the library, and when he came softly through the door, closing it after him, a slow pallor crept over his face, and he shrunk back with inward repulsion.Storms, too, was pale, for it required something more than brute courage to break the wicked business he was on to a man so gentle and so proud as Sir Noel Hurst. With all his audacity he began to cringe under the grave, quiet glance of inquiry bent upon him."I have come, Sir Noel—that is, I am wanting to see you about a little business of my own.""I understand," answered the baronet. "Your father wishes a new lease to be made out, and some additional land for yourself. I think that was the proposition.""Yes, Sir Noel, only the old man was backward in saying all that he wanted, and so I came to finish the matter up, knowing more than he does, and feeling sure that your honor would want to oblige me.""I am always ready to oblige any good tenant," answered Sir Noel, smiling gravely at what he considered the young man's conceit; "but think that wish should apply to your father rather than yourself, as he is in reality the tenant; but if you are acting for him, it amounts to the same thing.""No, Sir Noel, it isn't the same thing at all. I came here on my own business, with which my father has nothing to do. His lease is safe enough, being promised;but I want the uplands, with a patch of good shooting-ground, which no man living will have the right to carry a gun over without my leave.""Anything else?" questioned Sir Noel, with quiet irony, smiling in spite of himself."Yes, Sir Noel, there is something else," rejoined the young man, kindling into his natural audacity. "I want a house built on the place. No thatched cottage or low-roofed farm-house, but the kind of house a gentleman should live in, who shoots over his own land, for which he is expected to pay neither rent nor tithes.""That is, you wish me to give you a handsome property on which you can live like a gentleman? Do I understand your very modest request aright?""Not all of it. I haven't done yet.""Indeed! Pray, go on.""There isn't land enough out of lease to keep a gentleman, whose wife will have all the taste of a lady, being educated as the chief friend and associate of Sir Noel Hurst's ward. So I make it a condition that some fair income in money should be secured on the property.""A condition! You—""Yes, Sir Noel, it has come to that. I make conditions, and you grant them."Sir Noel's derisive smile deepened into a gentle laugh."Young man, are you mad? Nothing short of that can excuse this bombast," he said at last, reaching out his hand to ring the bell."Don't ring!" exclaimed Storms, sharply. "You are welcome to the laugh, but don't ring. Our business must be done without witnesses, for your own sake.""For my own sake? What insolence is this?""Well, if that does not suit, I will say for the sake of your son!"The blow was struck. Sir Noel's face blanched to the lips; but his eyes kindled and his form was drawn up haughtily."Well, sir, what have you to say of my son?""This much, Sir Noel. He has been poaching on my grounds, which I don't think you will like better than I do, letting alone the Lady Rose."Sir Noel rose to his feet."Silence, sir! Do not dare take that lady's name into your lips."Storms stepped back, frightened by the hot anger he had raised."I—I did but speak of her, Sir Noel, because the whole country round have thought that she was to be the lady of 'Norston's Rest.'""Well, sir, who says that she will not?""I say it! I, whose sweetheart and almost wedded mate he has made a by-word, and I do believe means to make his wife, rather than let the bargain settled between William Jessup and my father come to anything.""What—what reason have you for thinking so?" questioned the baronet, dismayed by this confirmation of fears that had been a sore trouble to him."What reason, Sir Noel? Ask him about his private meetings with Ruth Jessup in the park—in her father's house—by the lake—""I shall not ask him. Such questions would insult an honorable man.""An honorable man! Then ask him where he was an hour before William Jessup was shot. Ask him why the old man went out in search of him, and why a discharged gun, bruised about the stock, was found under that old cedar-tree. If your son refuses to answer, questionthe girl herself, my betrothed wife. Ask her about his coming to the cottage, while the old man was away. These are not pleasant questions, I dare say; but they will give you a reason why I am here, why the land I want must be had, and why I am ready to pay for it by marrying the only girl that stands in the way of your ward, without asking too many questions. You would not have the offer from many fellows, I can tell you."Sir Noel had slowly dropped into his chair, as this coarse speech was forced upon him. His own fears, hidden under the habitual reserve of a proud nature, gave force to every word the young man uttered. He was convinced that a revolting scandal, if not grave troubles, might spring out of the secret this young man was ready to sell and cover for the price he had stated. But great as this fear was, such means of concealment seemed impossible to his honorable nature. He could not force himself into negotiations with the dastard, who seemed to have no sense of honor or shame. The dead silence maintained by the baronet made Storms restless. He had retreated a little, when Sir Noel sat down; but drew near the table again with cat-like stillness, and leaning upon it with both hands, bent forward, and whispered:"Now I leave it to you, if the price I ask for taking her, and keeping a close mouth, isn't dog-cheap?""Yes, dog-cheap," exclaimed the baronet, drawing his chair back, while a flush of unmitigated disgust swept across the pallor of his face. "But I do not deal with dogs!"Storms started upright, with a snarl that seemed to come from the animal to which he felt himself compared, and for a moment his face partook of the resemblance."Such animals have been dangerous before now!" he said, with a hoarse threat in his voice.Sir Noel turned away from that vicious face, sick with disgust."If a harmless bark is not enough to start you into taking care of yourself, take the bite. I did not mean to give it yet, but you will have it. If you will not pay my price for your son's honor, do it to save his life, for it was he who killed William Jessup."Sir Noel arose from his seat, walked across the room and rang the bell. When the servant answered it he pointed toward the door, saying very quietly, "Show this person out."CHAPTER LIX.PLEADING FOR DELAY.HADher sin killed that good old man? Was the penalty of what seemed but an evasion, death—death to the being she loved better than any other on earth save one, that one suffering also from her fault? Had she, in her fond selfishness, turned that pretty home-nest into a tomb? Had God so punished her for this one offence, that she must never lift her head to the sunlight again?Sitting there alone in the midst of the shadows that gathered around her with funereal solemnity, Ruth asked herself this question, pressing her slender hands together, and shivering with nervous cold as she looked around on the dark objects in the little room, linked with such cruel tenderness to the father she had lost, that they seemed to reproach her on every side."Ah, me! I cannot stay here all alone—all alone, andhe gone! It is like sitting in a well. My feet are like ice. My tears are turning to hoar-frost. But he is colder than I am—happier, too, for he could die. One swift trouble pierced him, and he fell; but they shoot me through and through without killing. After all, I am more unhappy than the dead. If he knew this, oh, how my poor father would pity me! How he would long to take me with him, knowing that I have done wrong, but am not wicked! Oh, does he understand this? Will the angels be merciful, and let him know?"The poor child was not weeping, but sat there in the shadows of that home from which she had sent away her best friends, terrified by the darkness, dumb and trodden down under the force of her own reproaches, which beat upon her heart as the after swell of a tempest tramples the resistless shore. It seemed as if existence for her must henceforth be a continued atonement, that could avail nothing. In all the black horizon there was, for this child, but one gleam of light, and that broke upon her like a sin.Her husband! She had seen him for one dizzy moment; his head had rested on her bosom. While panting with weakness, and undue exertion, he had found time to whisper how dear she was to him. Yes, yes! there was one ray of hope for her yet. It had struck her father down like a flash of lightning, and the very thought of it blinded her soul. Still the light was there, though she was afraid to look upon it.A noise at the gate, a step on the gravel, a wild bound of her wounded heart, and then it fell back aching. Hurst came in slowly; he was feeble yet, and excitement had left him pale. Ruth arose, but did not go forward to meet him. She dared not, but stood trembling fromhead to foot. He came forward with his arms extended."Ruth! My poor girl; my dear, sweet wife!"She answered him with a great sob, and fell upon his bosom, weeping passionately. His voice had lifted her out of the solemnity of her despair. She was no longer in a tomb."Do not sob so, my poor darling. Am I not here?" said the young man, pressing her closer and closer to his bosom.She clung to him desperately, still convulsed with grief."Be tranquil. Do compose yourself, my beloved.""I am so lonely," she said, "and I feel so terribly wicked. Oh, Walton, we killed him. You and I. No, no; not that. I did it. No one else could.""Hush, hush, darling! This is taking upon yourself pain without cause. I come to say this, knowing it would give you a little comfort. I questioned the doctor. They sent for him again, for I was suffering from the shock, and nearly broken down. Ill as I was, this death preyed upon me worse than the fever, so I questioned the doctor closely. I demanded that he should make sure of the causes that led to your father's death. He did make sure. While you were shut up in your room, mourning and inconsolable, there was a medical examination. Your father might have lived a few hours longer but for the sudden shock of my presence here; but he must have died from his wound. No power on earth could have saved him. That was the general opinion."Ruth hushed her sobs, and lifted her face, on which the tears still trembled; for the first time since her father's death a gleam of hope shone in her eyes."Is this so, Walton?""Indeed it is. I would have broken loose from them all, and told you this before, but my presence seemed to drive you wild.""It did—it did.""That terrible night you sent me from the house, with such pitiful entreaties to be left alone. You preferred to be with the dead rather than me.""That was when I thought we had killed him. That was when I felt like a murderess. But it is over now. I can breathe again. He is gone—my poor father is gone, but I did not kill him—I did not kill him! Oh, Walton, there is no sin in my kisses now; nothing but tears."The poor young creature trembled under this shock of new emotions. The great horror was gone. She no longer clung to her husband with the feeling of a criminal."You have suffered, my poor child. We have both suffered, because I was selfishly rash; more than that, a coward.""No, no. Rash, but not a coward," broke in Ruth, impetuously. "You shrunk from giving pain, that is all.""But I shrink no longer. That which we have done must be publicly known.""How? What are you saying?""That you are my wife, my honored and beloved wife, and as such Sir Noel, nay, the whole world, must know you."Then Ruth remembered Richard Storms, and his dangerous threats. She was enfeebled by long watching, and terrified by the thought of new domestic tempests."Not yet, oh, not yet. Walton, you terrify me.""But, my darling!—""Not yet, I say. Let us rest a little. Let us stop and draw breath before we breast another storm. I have no strength for it.""But, Ruth, this is no home for you.""The dear home—the dear old home. I was afraid of it. I shuddered in it only a little while ago; but now it is no longer a prison, no longer a sepulchre. I cannot bear to leave it.""Ruth, your home is up yonder. It should have been so from the first, only I had not the courage to resist your pleadings for delay; but now—""But now you will wait because I so wish it. Oh, Walton, I have not the courage to ask a place under your father's roof. Give me a little time.""It is natural that you should shrink, being a woman," said Hurst, kissing the earnest face lifted to his. "But it shames me to have set you the example."Ruth answered this with pathetic entreaty, which she strove to render playful."Being two culprits. One brave, the other a poor coward, you will have compassion, and let her hide away yet a while.""No, Ruth! We—I have done wrong, but for the hurt that struck me down, I should have told my father long ago. I meant to do it the very next day. It was his entreaties that I dreaded, not his wrath. I doubted myself, more than his forgiveness. Had he been less generous, less noble, I should not have cared to conceal anything from him.""But having done so, let it rest a while, Walton; I am so weary, so afraid."Ruth wound her arms around the young man's neck, and enforced her entreaties with tearful caresses. She was, indeed, completely broken down. He felt that it would be cruelty to force her into new excitements now, and gave way."Be it as you wish," he said, gently. "Only remember you have no protector here, and it is not for my honor that the future lady of 'The Rest' should remain long in any home but that of her husband.""Yes, I know, but this place has been so dear to me. Remember, will you, that the little birds are never taken from the nest all at once. They first flutter, then poise themselves on the side, by-and-by hop off to a convenient twig, flutter to a branch and back again. I am in the nest, and afraid, as yet. Do you understand?""Yes, darling, I understand.""And you will say nothing, as yet. Hush!" whispered Ruth, looking wildly over his shoulder. "I hear something.""It is nothing.""How foolish I am! Of course it is nothing. We are quite alone; but every moment it seems as if I must hear my father's step on the threshold, as I heard it that night. It frightened me, then; now I could see him without dread, because I think that he knows how it is.""Before many days we shall be able to see the whole world without dread," answered Hurst, very tenderly. "Till then, good-night.""Good-night, Walton, good-night. You see that I can smile, now. I have lost my father, but the bitterness of sorrow is all gone. I had other troubles and some fears that seemed important while he was alive; but now I can hardly remember them. Great floods swallow upeverything in their way. I have but just come out of the storm where it seemed as if I was wrecked forever. So I have no little troubles, now. Good-by. I shall dream after this. Good-by."

SITTING AT THE WINDOW.

RUTH JESSUPhad no courage to attempt another interview with her bridegroom. Every morning she made an excuse to visit "The Rest" with fruit from her own garden, always accompanied by the choicest flowers arranged with a touch of loving art, which he began to read eagerly, now that he knew from whom they came. Once or twice she met Sir Noel, who, for the first time in his life, seemed to avoid her. The pleasant greeting which her rare beauty and brightness had been sure to win from him, no longer welcomed her; but was enchanged for a grave bow, and sometimes—so her tender conscience read the change—by a look of reproach. Lady Rose she purposely shunned; partly because a sense of deception hung heavily upon her, and partly because of the restless jealousy, which sprang out of her own intense love, that admitted no other worshipper near her idol.

Mrs. Mason, too, had taken to lecturing her, making her discourse offensive by constant allusions to young Storms, and the household arrangements which must soon be made at the farm. No denial or protest left the least impression on the good dame, who had made upher mind that such things were to be expected from over-sensitive girls like Ruth, and must not be set down against them as falsehoods, being, at the worst, only a forgivable exaggeration of natural modesty. Besides, she had taken an opportunity to speak to the young man himself, who had laughed knowingly when she told him of Ruth's denial of all engagement between them, and replied that a woman of her age ought to be old enough to understand that a girl's "no" always meant "yes" when the time came. For his part, he was only waiting for the lease to be signed. Anyway, Ruth would set no day till that was done, and no blame either. So if Mrs. Mason wanted to do her goddaughter a good turn and stop people from talking, she had better help that on. Everybody knew that she had great influence with Sir Noel, and the lease was all that was wanted to make things go smoothly between him and her goddaughter.

Against all this evidence it is not wonderful that the housekeeper went quietly on with her preparations, and gave no heed to Ruth's denials, tearful and even angry as they often were.

All this was very hard on Ruth, who found herself miserably baffled at every point. All her friends seemed to have dropped away from her. Their very affection was turned into mockery by persistent disbelief of all she said. She still hovered about the great house each morning as a frightened bird flutters around its nest, but with little chance of satisfaction, for, except the housekeeper's room, all the establishment seemed closed to her.

One day the poor girl saw her husband on the flower-terrace, moving slowly up and down among the roses, and a cry of such exquisite delight broke from her, that Mrs. Mason rose from her easy-chair and came to the window, curious to know what had called it forth.

What was going on? What had she seen to brighten her face so? Had the sullen old peacock at last spread himself, or was she wondering at the great bloom of roses? Something out of the common had happened to set that pale face into such a glow. Would Ruth tell her what it was?

No, Ruth could not tell her, for the color had all died out of her face while the old woman was talking, and the glorious show of flowers had turned to a misty cloud, in which a beautiful young woman was floating, angel-like, toward her husband, and he went to meet her.

Lifting both hands to her face, Ruth shut out the sight, and when Mrs. Mason insisted on questioning her, turned upon the good woman like a hunted doe, and, stamping her foot, declared, with great tears flashing in her eyes, that nothing was the matter. Only—only so much watching made her nervous, hysterical, some people might call it; but that did not matter. Laughing and crying amounted to the same thing. She would go home. There nobody would trouble themselves about her.

With this reckless burst of feeling, Ruth flung herself away from the outstretched arms of her half-frightened godmother, and ran home, sobbing as she went. Would this miserable state of anxiety never end? Must she go on forever with this awful feeling gnawing at her heart? Would this longing for protection, this baffled tenderness, ever meet with a response? Ah, she understood now the depths of God's punishment to poor Eve, when the angel was placed at the gates of Paradise to keep her out. Was Lady Rose chosen to guard her Paradise, because of the sin through which she had entered it? How like a glorious angel she looked in the soft whiteness and tenderblue of garments that floated around her like a cloud. How bright and rich were the waves and curls of her hair! Surely no angel ever could be more beautiful!

This passion of feeling, which combined so many elements of unrest, was thrown into abeyance when Ruth got home; for, looking up, with her hand on the gate, she saw her father sitting at the chamber-window waiting for her. It was the first time he had crossed the floor since his illness. The thought that he had made the dangerous attempt alone struck her with dismay.

"Oh, father, how could you?" was her first anxious question as she entered the room. "Have I been gone so long that you got impatient?"

"No, no! I felt better, and took a longing to look on the garden. I never was so many days without seeing it before," said the old man. "I think it has done me good, child."

"I hope so. I hope so, father!"

"See how well I walk. Never fear, lass. The old father will soon be about again."

The gardener got up from his chair with some difficulty and walked across the room, waving Ruth aside when she offered to support him.

"Nay, nay, let me try it alone," he said, with feeble triumph. "To-morrow I shall be getting down-stairs. I only hope the young master is as strong."

"Oh, father, he is better; I saw him on the terrace this morning."

"Ah, that is brave. But how did he look? Thin, like me?"

"No, not like you, father. He was always more slender, you know; but I think he was pale."

"Of course, of course. He has a hard bout. Not this, though, and I'm thankful for it."

Jessup put one hand to his wounded breast as he spoke, and Ruth observed, with anxiety, that he breathed with difficulty.

"You must not try to walk again, father," she said, arranging his pillows and wiping the drops from his forehead. "It exhausts you."

"Nothing of the kind, lass. I shall be all the stronger in an hour. Why, at the end of three days, I mean to walk over to 'The Rest,' and have a talk with the young master."

"Oh, how I wish you could!"

"Could? I will. I thought he would have answered my letter by a word, if no more. But I have no doubt he is o'er weak for writing. Anyhow, we shall soon know."

Again Ruth breathed freely. The father was right. In a few days she would hear directly from her husband—perhaps see him. If he wished it, as she did, nothing could keep him away, now that he had once gone into the open air. Surely she was brave enough to bear her burden a little longer.

It was growing dark, now. Jessup had been at rest most of the time; for, in his feeble state, crossing that room had wearied him as no journey could have done in health.

Ruth had been restless as a caged bird all day. Her load of apprehension regarding her father had been relieved only that the keener trouble, deep down in her woman's heart, should come uppermost with new force. Those two persons among the roses on the terrace haunted her like one of those pictures which the brain admires and the heart loathes. Was not this man her husband? Had he not sworn to love her, and her alone?What right had Lady Rose by his side? How dared she look into those eyes whose love-light was all her own only a few weeks ago? Alas! those weary, weary weeks! How they had dragged and torn at her life! How old she had grown since that circlet of gold had been hidden in her bosom!

Ruth was very sad that evening,—sad, and strangely haunted. It seemed to her that, more than ever, she was waiting for some great catastrophe. Black clouds seemed gathering all around her; difficulties that she had no strength to fathom or combat seemed to people the clouds with ruin. Yet all was vague and dreary. The poor child was worn out with loneliness and watching.

All at once she heard a footstep. Not the one she dreaded, but the slow, faltering walk of some person who hesitated, or paused, perhaps, for breath.

Up to her feet the girl sprang, leaned forward, and listened, holding down her heart with both trembling hands, and checking the breath on her parted lips.

The door opened softly.

"Ruth!"

She sprang forward, her arms outstretched, a glorious smile transfiguring her face.

"Oh, my beloved! My husband!"

She led him to the little couch on which so many bitter tears had told of her misery. He was worn out with walking, and fell upon it, smiling as she raised his head from the cushions, and pillowed it on her bosom, folding in his weakness with her young arms.

"It may kill me, but I could not keep away. Oh, my darling, how I have longed for a sight of you!" said the young husband.

Ruth gathered him closer in her arms, and, forgetting everything but his presence, kissed the very words from his smiling lips.

"Ah, you have come. It is enough! It is enough!"

Something startled her; a faint noise near the door. She lifted her head, and there stood her father, looking wildly upon her—upon him.

Before she could move or speak, the old man swayed, uttered one faint moan, and fell across the threshold.

DEATH.

WHILERuth had thought her father resting from his dangerous exertions, that poor man had been aroused into keen wakefulness which brought back all his old powers of thought. His brain had been cleared from the dull mists of fever, and the haze that had gathered over his memory was swept away by the physical effort he had made. He began to see things clearly that had seemed fantastic and dreamlike till then. The events of that night, when he received his wound, came out before him in pictures. The great cedar of Lebanon, the face he had seen for a moment gleaming through the darkness, everything came to his memory with the vividness of thoughts that burn like fire in an enfeebled brain, driving out sleep and everything but themselves.

Slowly and surely dreams melted away into nothingness. For, in the state of nervous excitement whichsometimes comes with returning powers, after long mental wanderings, all his ideas were supremely vivid.

One by one he arranged past events in his mind. From the time that he met young Storms in the park on his way home that fatal night, and received the first cruel idea of his daughter's shame, for which he cast the young man to the earth in his rage, as we wrestle with a mad dog, which leaves its poison in our veins. He traced events down to the moment when a flash of fire seemed to pass through him under the cedars, and he awoke, helpless, in the little chamber whose walls enclosed him now. Then he remembered the letter he had written to young Hurst; hours before, he could not have given its import, or have repeated a word of it. But now, it came before him like the rest, a visible substance. He saw the very handwriting, uneven and irregular, such as he had left in copy-books years before, and it rose up clearly in judgment against him now. Reading these great, uncouth letters in his mind, he groaned aloud.

That which, in his fever, he had resolved to keep secret forever, he had written out in a wild effort to spare anxiety to another, suffering like himself. What if that letter should fall into the hands of an enemy? It conveyed a charge. It hinted at something that might bring terrible suspicions on the young man who had been dear to him almost as his own child. The evil he had tried to prevent had been drawn ominously near by his own hand.

The old man lay there, wounding himself with the most bitter reproaches. Into what mad folly had the fever thrown him!

William Jessup started up in bed, as these thoughtscame crowding to his brain. He would at once redeem the evil that had been done. That letter should be revoked.

Yes, he would do it that moment; then, perhaps, he might sleep, for the intense working of his brain was more than he could endure. It was like the rush and thud of an engine, over which the master-hand had lost control.

Ruth Jessup's little desk lay open on the table close by the bed, where she had been using it. Pen and paper lay upon it, inviting the sick man to act at once. He was still wrapped in a long flannel dressing-gown, and his feet were thrust into slippers, which the hands of his child had wrought with scrolls of glittering bead-work and clusters of flowers—soft, dainty slippers, which made no noise as he dropped his feet over the bedside, and drew the table toward him with hands nerved to steadiness by a firm resolve.

Truly, that great hand shook, and the pen sometimes leaped from the paper as some sharp, nervous thrill for a moment disabled it. But for a time excitement was strength, and to that was added a firm will: so the pen worked on, linking letter to letter, and word to word, until the white surface of a page was black with them. Then he turned the sheet over, pressed it down with both hands, and went on until his task was done.

By this time his eyes were heavy with fatigue, and a dusky fever-flush burned on his cheeks. He folded the sheet of paper, which was well written over, and directed it on the blank side to "Walton Hurst," then he pushed the table aside, leaned back upon the pillow, and gave way to the exhaustion which this great effort had brought upon him. Still, the poor man could not sleep, thebrain had been too much disturbed. While his body lay supine, and his hands were almost helplessly folded in his flannel dressing-gown, those deep-set eyes were wide open, and burning with internal fires.

Thus the sun went down, and a glory of crimson gold and purple swept through the window, slowly darkening the room.

All this time, Ruth was below, sad and thoughtful, gleaning a little pleasure from the fact that all was silent overhead, which indicated a long, healthful sleep for her father, after his first effort to cross the room. She was very careful to make no noise that might disturb the beloved sleeper, and thus sat hushed and watchful, when the sweet shock of her husband's presence aroused her.

This noise had reached the chamber where Jessup lay.

"She is below," he thought, struggling up from his bed. "This very hour she shall carry my letter to 'The Rest.' Will she ever forgive me for doubting her, my sweet, good child? Ah, how did I find heart to wrong her so?"

With the letter clasped in one hand, and that buried in the pocket of his dressing-gown, the old man moved through the dusky starlight that filled his room, and down the narrow stairs slowly, for he was weak, and softly, for his slippers made no noise. He paused a moment in the passage, holding by the banister, then, guided by an arrow of light that shot through the door, which was ajar, stood upon the threshold, struck through the heart by what he saw—wounded again and unto death by the words he heard.

"It was true! it was true!" The words said to him by that vile man in the park that night was a fact thatstruck him with a sharper pang than the rifle had given. His child—his Ruth, his milk-white lamb—where was she? "Whose head was that resting upon her bosom? Whose voice was that murmuring in her ear?"

The pain of that awful moment made him reel upon his feet, a cry broke to his lips, bringing waves of red blood with it. His hands lost their hold on the door-frame, and his body fell across the threshold.

For a moment two white, scared faces looked down upon the fallen man, then at each other, dazed by the sudden horror. Then Ruth sank to the floor, with a piteous cry, lifted his head to her lap, and moaning over it, besought her father to look up, to speak one word, to lift but a finger, anything to prove that he was not dead.

Hurst bent over her, feeble and trembling. He had no power to lift the old man from her arms, but leaned against the door-frame paralyzed.

"Oh, wipe his lips, they are so red! Help me to lift him up," cried Ruth, with woeful entreaty. "He is not dead, you know. Remember how he fainted before, but that was not death. Help me! Oh, Walton, help me, or something dreadful may come to him."

The agony of this pleading aroused all that remained of strength in the young husband's frame. He stooped down, and attempted to remove the old man from the girl's clinging arms.

"No, no!" she cried. "I can take care of him best. Bring me some brandy—brandy, I say! You will find it in—in the cupboard. Brandy, quick—quick, or he may never come-to!"

Hurst went to the closet, brought forth a flask of brandy, and attempted to force some drops between those parted lips, through which the teeth were gleaming with ghastly whiteness.

"He cannot drink! Bring a glass. Father! father! try to move—try to swallow. It frightens me so! Ah, try to understand! It frightens me so!"

All efforts were in vain. Hurst knelt down, and, with a hopeless effort, felt for the pulse that would never beat again.

"His head is growing heavier. See how he leans on me! Of course, he knows—only—only—Oh, Walton! There is no breath!" whispered the poor girl. "What can I do—what can I do?"

"Ruth, my poor child, I fear he will never breathe again."

"Never breathe again! Never breathe again! Why, that is death!"

"Yes, Ruth, it is death," answered the young man, folding the dressing-gown over the body, reverently, as if it had been the vestment of some old Roman.

"Then you and I have killed him," said the girl, in a hoarse whisper. "You and I!"

The young man made no answer, but kindly and gently attempted to remove the body that rested so heavily upon her.

"Not yet—oh, not yet! I cannot give him up! He might live long enough to pardon me."

"If good men live hereafter, and you believe that, Ruth, he knows that concealment is all the sin you have committed against him," answered Hurst, gently.

"But that has brought my poor—poor father here," said the girl, looking piteously up into the young man's face.

"Ruth—Ruth, do not reproach me! God knows I blame myself bitterly enough," he said, at last.

"Blame yourself? Oh, no! I alone am to blame. Itwas I that tempted you. I that listened—that loved, and made you love me. Father—father! Oh, hear this! Stay with us! Oh, stay in your old home long enough for that! He is not in fault. He never said a word or gave me a look that was not noble. He never meant to harm me, or—or offend you. I—I alone am the guilty one."

"Ruth, Ruth! you are breaking my heart!" whispered Hurst.

"Breaking your heart! Oh, I have done enough of that, miserable wretch that I am!" answered the girl, speaking more and more faintly. "If I could only make him understand how sorry I am; but oh, Walton! I think he is growing cold. I have tried to warm him here in my arms, but his cheek lies chilly against mine, and my—my heart is cold as—as his."

The head drooped on her bosom; her arms slackened their hold, and fell away from the form they had embraced, and she settled down by her father, lifeless, for the time, as he was—for William Jessup was dead. A great shock had cast him down with his face in the dust. Blasted, as it were, by a sudden conviction of his daughter's shame, he had gone into eternity as if struck by a flash of lightning.

THE GARDENER'S FUNERAL.

A FUNERALmoved slowly from the gardener's house. Out through the porch, under the clustering vines he had planted, William Jessup was carried by his own neighbors, with more than usual solemnity. His death had been fearfully sudden, and preceding circumstances surrounded it with weird interest. That which had been considered a mysterious assault, which no one cared to investigate too closely, now took the proportions of a murder, and many a sun-browned brow was heavy with doubt and dread as his friends stood ready to carry the good man out of the home his conduct had honored, and his hands had beautified.

Many persons out of his own sphere of life were gathered in the little cottage, seeking to console the poor girl, who was left alone in it, and to show fitting respect to the dead. Among these were Sir Noel and his household. Lady Rose came, subdued and saddened with womanly pity. Mrs. Mason, full of grief and motherly anxiety, took charge within doors, pausing in her endeavors every few moments to comfort Ruth, whose sorrow carried her to the very brink of despair.

Many people came from the village, where Jessup had been very popular, and among them old Storms, who, with his son, kept aloof, looking darkly on the crowd that passed into the dwelling.

No one seemed to remark that the young heir of "Norston's Rest" was absent; for it was known that he had taxed his strength too far, and was now paying thepenalty of over exertion by a relapse which threatened to prostrate him altogether.

In the throng of villagers that came in groups through the park was the landlady of the public house, and with her Judith Hart, who was too insignificant a person for criticism, or the eager excitement of her manner might have arrested attention. But safe in her low estate, the girl moved about in the crowd, until the house was filled, and half the little concourse of friends stood reverently on the outside waiting for the coffin to be brought forth. Then she drew close to young Storms, who stood apart from his father, and whispered, "You beckoned me—what for?"

Storms answered her in a cautious whisper. Nodding her head, the girl replied:

"But after that, will you come to the public, or shall I—"

"To the Lake House, after the funeral," was the impatient rejoinder.

"I will be there, never fear."

With these words Judith glided off through the crowd, and passing around the house, concealed herself in the thickets of blooming plants in which the garden terminated.

From this concealment she watched the funeral train file out from the porch and wind its way down the great chestnut avenue on its course to the churchyard. She saw Ruth, the last of that little household, following the coffin with bowed head, and footsteps that faltered in her short walk between the porch and the gate. Wicked as the girl was, a throb of compassion stirred her heart for the young creature whom she had so hated in her jealous wrath, but could pity in such deep affliction.

Slowly and solemnly the funeral procession swept from the house, and passed, like a black cloud, down the avenue. The park became silent. The cottage was still as death, for every living thing had passed from it when the body of its master was carried forth. Then holding her breath, and treading softly, as if her sacrilegious foot were coming too near an altar, Judith Hart stole into the house. The door was latched, not locked. She felt sure of that, for, in deep grief, who takes heed of such things? A single touch of her finger, and she would be mistress of that little home for an hour at least. Still her heart quaked and her step faltered. It seemed as if she were on the threshold of a great crime, but had no power to retreat.

She was in the porch; her hand was stretched out, feeling for the latch, when something dragged at her arm. A sharp cry broke from her; then, turning to face her enemy, she found only the branch of a climbing rose that had broken loose from the kindred vines, whose thorns clung to her sleeve.

"What a fool I am!" thought the girl, tearing the thorny branch away from her arm. "What would he think of me? There!"

The door was open. She glided in, and shut it in haste, drawing a bolt inside.

"Bah! how musty the air is! With the shutters closed, the room seems like a grave. So much the better! No one can look through."

The little sitting-room was neatly arranged. Nothing but the chairs was out of place. Judith could see that, through all the gloom.

"Not here," she thought. "Nothing that he wants can be here. Her room first: that is the place to search."

SEARCHING A HOUSE.

UPthe crooked staircase the girl turned and shut herself into a little chamber, opposite that in which Jessup had suffered his days of pain—a dainty chamber, in which the windows and bed were draped like a summer cloud, and on a toilet, white as virgin snow, a small mirror was clouded in like ice. Even the coarse nature of Judith Hart was struck by the pure stillness of the place she had come to desecrate, and she stood just within the threshold, as if terrified by her own audacity. "If he were here, I wonder if he would dare touch a thing?" she thought, going back to her purpose. "I wish he had done it himself; I don't like it."

She did not like it; being a woman, how could she? But the power of that bad man was strong upon her, and directly the humane thrill left her bosom. She was his slave again.

"Something may be here," she said, sweeping aside the delicate muslin of the toilet with her rude hands. "Ladies keep their choice finery and love-letters in such places, I know; and she puts on more airs than any lady of the land. Ah, nothing but slippers and boots that a child might wear, fit for Lady Rose herself, with their high heels and finikin stitching. Such things for a gardener's daughter! Dear me, what is the use of a toilet if one cannot load it with pincushions, and things to hold ear-rings, and brooches, and such like! Nothing but boots—such boots, too—under the curtains, and on the top a prayer-book, bound in velvet. Well, this is something."

A small chair stood by the toilet, in which Judith seated herself, while she turned over the leaves of the book, and, pausing at the first page, read, "Ruth Jessup, from her godmother."

"Oh, that's old Mason. Not much that he wants here. No wonder the lass is so puffed up. Velvet books, and a room like this! Well, well, I never had a godmother, and sleep in a garret, under the roof. That's the difference. But we shall see. Only let me find something that pleases him here, and this room is nothing to the one he will give me. Thin muslin. Poh! I will have nothing less than silks and satins, like a born lady. That much I'm bent on."

Flinging down the prayer-book, without further examination, Judith proceeded to search the apartment thoroughly. She examined all the dainty muslins and bits of lace, the ribbons and humbler trifles contained in the old-fashioned bureau. She even thrust her hand under the snowy pillows of the bed, but found nothing save the pretty, lady-like trifles that awoke some of the old, bitter envy as she handled them.

"Now for the old man's room. Something is safe to turn up there," she thought, conquering a superstitious feeling that had kept her from this room till the last. "It's an awful thing to ask of one. I wonder how he would feel prowling through a dead man's chamber like a thief, which I shall be if I find papers, and taking them amounts to that; but he would give me no peace till I promised to come."

The room from which Jessup had been carried out was in chilling order. A fine linen sheet lay on the bed, turned back in a large wave as it had been removed from the body when it was placed in the coffin. A hot-houseplant stood on the window-sill, perishing for want of water. The stand upon which Ruth's desk was placed had been set away in a corner, and to this Judith went at once. She found nothing, however, save a few scraps of paper, containing some date, or a verse of poetry that seemed copied from memory; two or three sheets of notepaper had a word or two written on them, as if an impulse to write had seized upon the owner, but was given up with the first words, which were invariably, "My dear—" The next word seemed hard to guess at, for it never found its way to paper; so Judith discovered nothing in her pillage of Ruth's desk, and the failure made her angry.

"He'll never believe I looked thoroughly, though what I am to find, goodness only knows. Every written paper that I lay my hands on must be brought to him. That is what he said, and what I am to do. But written papers ain't to be expected in a house like this, I should say. How am I to get what isn't here, that's the question? Anyway, I'll make a good search. Not much chance here, but there's no harm in looking."

Judith flung the closet-door open, and peered in, still muttering to herself, "Nothing but clothes. Jessup's fustian-coat. Poor old fellow! He'll never wear it again. His Sunday-suit, too, just as he left it hanging. No shelf, no—Stay, here is something on the floor. Who knows what may be under it?"

Judith stooped down, and drew a long garment of gray flannel from the closet, where it seemed to have been cast down in haste. It was Jessup's dressing-gown, which had been taken from him after death.

"Nothing but the poor old fellow's clothes," shethought, growing pale and chilly, from some remembrance that possessed her at the sight of those empty garments. "I will throw the old dressing-gown back, and give it up. The sight of them makes me sick. Well, I've searched and searched. What more can he want of me?"

Judith Hart gathered up the dressing-gown in her hands, and was about to replace it, when a folded paper dropped to her feet. She snatched the paper, thrust the dressing-gown back to the closet, and turned to a window, unfolding her prize as she went.

"His writing. The same great hooked letters, the same hard work in writing! 'To Walton Hurst.' It might be the same, only there is more of it, and the lines ain't quite so scraggly." Even as she talked, Judith held Jessup's letter to an opening in the shutter, and read it eagerly.

More than once Judith read the letter that Jessup had written with his last dying strength, at first with surprise deepening into terror as she went on. Then she fell into solemn thoughtfulness. Being a creature of vivid imagination, she could not stand in that death-chamber with a writing purloined from the murdered man's garments in her hand without a shiver of dread running through all her frame.

In truth, she was fearfully disturbed, and the very blood turned cold as it left her face when she thrust the paper into her bosom, shrinking from it with shudderings all the time.

After this, she remained some minutes by the window, lost in thoughts that revealed themselves plainer than language as they passed over her mobile features.

Then a sound, far down in the park, startled her and she left the house absorbed and saddened. It was wellfor her chances of escape that the girl left Jessup's cottage at once; for she was hardly out of sight when a group of neighbors from the funeral cortege came back, haunting those rooms with sorrowful countenances, and striving with great kindness to win the lone girl, thus suddenly made an orphan, from the terrible grief into which she had fallen.

A MOTHER'S HOPEFULNESS.

AMONGthe persons who had come to the gardener's funeral old Mrs. Storms was most conspicuous, not only from her high position among the tenants, but because of the relations her son was supposed to hold with the daughter, who was beloved by them all. After the funeral several neighbors offered to stay with Ruth, but in her wild wretchedness she refused them all—kindly, sweetly, as it was in her nature to do, but with a positiveness that admitted of no further urgency.

Even Mrs. Mason, who now considered herself as something more than friend or godmother, felt constrained to go away and leave the poor girl to the isolation she pleaded for; though with some little resentment at the bottom of her kind heart.

Mrs. Storms was not to be dissuaded from all kindliness so easily. When the neighbors were gone she came into the room where Ruth was sitting, and in a gentle, motherly fashion, sat down by the mourner and strove to comfort her.

"Come," she said, taking the girl's cold hands in the clasp of her hard-working fingers, "come, lass, and stay with me. This house is so full of gloom that you will pine to death in it. Our home is large, and bright with sunshine. You shall have the lady's chamber, which will be all your own some blessed day, God willing."

The good woman caught her breath here, for something like an electric shock flashed through the hands she clasped, and Ruth made a struggle to free herself from the thraldom of kindness that was torturing her.

"I know—I know this isn't the time to speak of weddings; but you have no mother, and I never had a girl in the house; so if you would only come now, and be company for me—only company for the old woman—it would be better and happier for us all."

Ruth did not answer this loving appeal. She only closed her eyes and shuddered faintly. Great emotions had exhausted themselves with her.

"Be sure, Ruth, it is not my son alone who loves you. From the first I have always looked upon you as my own lass, and a prettier no mother need want, or a better, either."

"No, no, you must not say that," Ruth cried out; for the anguish of these praises was more than she could bear. "He thought me pretty—he thought me good, and how have I repaid him? Oh, my father, my poor dead father, it was love for me that killed him!"

Mrs. Storms was silent a while. She understood this piteous outcry as a burst of natural grief, and gave it no deeper significance; but she felt the task of comforting the poor girl more difficult than she had imagined. What could she say that would not call forth some newcause of agitation? The subject which she had fondly trusted in seemed to give nothing but pain. Yet no hint had ever reached the woman that the attachment of her son was not more than returned by this orphaned girl. Perhaps Ruth was wounded that Richard was not there in place of his mother. With this possibility in her mind the matron renewed her kindly entreaties.

"You must not think it strange, dear, that Richard left the funeral without coming back to the cottage. It was that his heart was full of the great trouble, and he would not darken the cottage with more than you could bear. The father, too—for you must think of him as that, dear child—has well nigh broke his heart over the loss of his old friend. He's eager as can be to have a daughter in the house, and will be good as gold to her."

Ruth did not listen to the subject of these words, but the kindly voice soothed her. This old housewife had been a good friend to her ever since she could remember, and was trying to comfort her now, as if anything approaching comfort could ever reach her life, fearfully burdened as it was. Still, there was soothing in the voice. So the matron, meeting no opposition, went on:

"We must not talk of what is closest to our hearts just yet; but the time will soon come when the old man and I will flit to some smaller home, and you shall have the house all for your two selves. It will be another place then; for Richard can afford to live more daintily than we ever cared for. The garden can be stocked with flowers and made pretty as this at the cottage. The barley-field can be seeded back to a lawn, and that parlor with the oriel window, where the good man stores hisfruit, can be made rarely grand with its pictured walls and carved mantelpiece."

Still Ruth did not listen; only a fantastic and vague picture of some dream-like place was passing through her mind, which the kind old neighbor was endeavoring to make her understand. Now and then she felt this hazy picture broken up by a jar of pain when Richard Storms was mentioned; but even that hated name was so softened by the loving, motherly voice that half its bitterness was lost.

"Tell me," said the matron, "when will you come? I made everything ready this morning before we left, hoping you would go back with us."

Ruth opened her great sad eyes, and looked into the motherly face bending over her.

"You are kind," she said, "so kind, and you were his dear friend. I know that well enough; but I cannot fix my mind on anything—only this: your voice is sweet; you are good, and wish me to do something that I cannot think of yet. Let me rest; my eyes ache with heaviness. I have no strength for anything. This is a sad place, and I am sad like the rest; if you would leave me now, in all kindness I ask it; perhaps the good God might permit me to sleep. Since the night he died I have been fearfully awake, sitting by him, you know. Now—now I would like to be alone, quite alone. There is something I wish to ask of God."

Mrs. Storms yielded to this sad pleading, laid the girl's hands into her lap, kissed her forehead and went away, thinking, in her motherly innocence:

"The child is worn out, dazed with her great sorrow. I can do nothing with her; but Richard will be going to the cottage, and she loves him. Ah, who could help it,now that he is so manly and has given up the ways that we dreaded might turn to evil! She will listen to him, then John and I will have a daughter."

WAITING AT THE LAKE HOUSE.

DURINGthe time that his mother was so kindly persuading Ruth to accept a home with her, Richard Storms was pacing the Lake House to and fro, like a caged animal waiting for its feeder.

The triumph of his revenge and his love seemed near at hand now. Before Jessup's death his power was insufficient, his influence feeble, for no one was in haste to take up a wrong which the sufferer was the first to ignore. But now the wound had done its work. A man had been shot to death, and any subject of Her Majesty had the right to call for a full investigation before a magistrate. This investigation the young man had resolved to demand.

All that the man wanted now, to complete his power of ruin, was the letter which Judith Hart had found drifting through the shrubbery on the day she had visited "Norston's Rest," at his own suggestion, in order to get a foothold in the establishment and become his willing or unconscious spy, as he might be compelled to use her.

That letter was so important to him now that he was ready to do anything, promise anything, in order to get possession of it, and prowling around and around the old Lake House, he racked his brain for some power ofinducement by which he could win it from her, and perhaps other proofs that she might find in the cottage.

Thus urged to the verge of desperation, by a thirst for revenge on young Hurst, and the craving love which Ruth Jessup had rejected with so much scorn, the young man awaited with burning impatience the coming of his dupe; for up to this time he had failed in making her entirely an accomplice.

Judith came down to the lake in great excitement. Storms saw that, as she turned from the path and waded through the long, thick rushes on the shore, without seeming to heed them.

"You have found something! I see that in your face," he said, as the girl darkened the Lake House door. "Give it to me, for I never was so eager to be at work. Why don't you speak? Why don't you tell me what it is?"

Judith pushed her way into the house and seated herself on the bench, where she sat looking at him with an expression in her eyes that seemed to forbode revolt.

"Tell me," he said, sitting down by her, "tell me what you have discovered. I hope it is something that will clear the way to our wedding, for I am getting impatient for it. Nothing but the want of that paper has kept me back so long."

The strange expression on Judith's face softened a little. Some good was in the girl. The firm hold she had kept on Jessup's dangerous letter had been maintained as much from reluctance to bring ruin on an innocent man as for her own security. On her way from the gardener's cottage, she had taken a rapid survey of the situation, and for the first time felt the courage of possessed power.

"You are in terrible haste," she said, "as if the paperI have was not enough to win anything you want from Sir Noel."

"But you will not trust me with it. You do not love me well enough for that."

"I loved you well enough to give up my home, my poor old father, my good name with the neighbors, and become the meanest of servants, only to be near you," answered the girl, with deep feeling; "and I love you now, oh God, forgive me! better, better than my own wicked soul, or you never would have seen me again."

"Still you refuse to give me the one scrap of paper that can bring us together," said Storms, reproachfully.

"If I did give it up what would you do with it?"

"Do with it! I will take it to Sir Noel, break down his pride, threaten him with the exposure of his son's crime, and wring the lease I want from him, with enough money beside to keep my wife a lady."

"But what if I take the paper to Sir Noel, and get all these things for myself?"

For an instant Storms was startled, but a single thought restored his self-poise.

"There is one thing Sir Noel could not give you."

"What is that?"

"A husband that loves the very ground you walk on."

"Oh, if I could be sure that you loved me like that."

"I do—I do; but how can I wed you without some chance of a living? The old man wouldn't take us in without the new lease, and without more land I can do nothing."

"Dick! Oh, tell me the truth now. Is that all the use you mean to make of this paper?"

"Yes, all! I will swear to it if that will pacify you. The lease, and money, down at the time; for a handsomewife must have something to dash her neighbors with. That is all I want, and that the paper in your bosom will bring me."

Judith lifted a hand to her bosom, and kept it there, still hesitating.

"You do not mean to harm the young gentleman? Oh, Richard, you could not be so bad as that."

"Harm him! No! I only want to frighten Sir Noel out of his land and money. If I once gave the paper to a magistrate, it would be an end of that."

"So it would," said Judith, thoughtfully. "Besides—besides—"

"Come, come! Make up your mind, girl!"

"Swear to me, that you will never show the paper to any one but Sir Noel—never use it against the young gentleman!"

"Swear! I am ready! If there were a Bible here I would do it now."

"Never mind the Bible! With your hand here, and your eyes looking into mine, swear to your promise."

Storms gave a returning grasp to the hand which had seized his, and his eyes were lifted for a moment to the bold, black orbs that seemed searching him to the soul; but they wavered in an instant, and returned her gaze with furtive side-glances, while he repeated the oath in language which was profane rather than solemn.

After holding his hand for a minute, in dead silence, Judith dropped it, and taking the old portemonnaie from her bosom, gave up old Jessup's first letter, but without a word of the other paper.

"There! Remember, I have trusted you."

Storms fairly snatched the paper from her hand, for the cruel joy of the moment was too much for his caution.

"Now," he said, with a laugh more repulsive than curses, "I have them all in the dust."

"But remember your oath," said Judith, uneasily, for the fierce triumph in that face frightened even her.

"I forget nothing!" was the bitter answer, "and will bate nothing—not a jot, not a jot."

Storms was half way to the door, as he said this, with the paper grasped tightly in his hand.

"But where are you going?" pleaded Judith, following him. "Is there nothing more to say?"

"Only this," answered Storms, struck by a shrewd after-thought; "it is better that you leave the 'Two Ravens' at once. It is not from the tap-room of an inn that a gentleman must take his wife."

Judith looked at him searchingly. There seemed to be reason in his suggestion; still she doubted him.

"Where would you have me go, Richard? Back to the old home?"

Storms reflected a moment before he answered.

"It isn't a palace or a castle, like the one you mean to get out of that paper," Judith said, impatient of his silence, "but, poor as it was, you liked to come there, and the old father would be glad and proud to be standing by when we are wedded."

"Yes, I dare say he would be that," answered Storms, with an uneasy smile. "Well, as you wish it, the old home is perhaps as safe a place as you could stay in."

"But it will not be for long—you promise that?" questioned the girl, anxiously.

"Not if Sir Noel comes down handsomely, but I must not be bothered while this work is on hand. You will give the landlady warning and go at once. Say nothing of where you are going; or perhaps, as she is sure to askquestions, it is better to speak of London. You can even take the train that way for a short distance, and turn back to the station nearest your home. The walk will not be much."

"What, from the station?" said Judith, laughing. "Why the old home is a good twenty miles from here, and I walked it all the way, having no money."

"Ah, that was when you were fired with jealousy, and I'll be bound you did not feel the walk. But we must have no more of that. There is money enough to take you home, and something over."

"No, no. I shall have my wages," said the girl, drawing back.

In her mad love she could leave her home and follow this man on foot without shame, but something of honest pride withheld her from receiving his money.

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Storms, wondering at the color that came into her face, while he dropped the gold back into his pocket. "But you must give notice at once. We have no time to lose. Now I think of it, how much did the landlady know about you at the 'Two Ravens?'"

"Nothing. She thinks I came down from London."

"Not the name? I cannot remember ever hearing it."

"No one but the mistress knew it," said Judith. "My father was of the better sort till misfortune came on him, and I wouldn't drag his name down in that place. I am only known as Judith among the customers."

"That is fortunate, and makes your going up to London the thing to say. You can be home to-morrow."

"But you will not be long away? You will come?"

"Surely; three days from this at our old place in theorchard. I do not care to see your father at first. It will be time enough when we can tell him everything. There, now, I must go. You will forget nothing?"

Storms held out his hand. Judith took it reluctantly.

"Are you leaving me now?"

"Yes, I am going yonder," he answered, waving his hand toward "Norston's Rest."

SIR NOEL'S VISITOR.

ITis not the old man, Sir Noel, but young Storms, who says he must and will see you!"

"Did the hind send that message to me?"

"No, Sir Noel, he only said it to me, and impudent enough in him to do it. His message to you was soft as silk. He had important business which you would like to hear of, and could not wait. That was what made him bold to ask," answered the servant, who had been greatly disturbed by the manner of young Storms, who was no favorite at "The Rest."

"You can let him come in," said Sir Noel, with strange hesitancy; for over him came one of those chilly presentiments that delicately sensitive persons alone can feel, when some evil thing threatens them. "Let the young man come in."

The servant went out of the library, and Sir Noel leaned back in his chair, subdued by this premonition of evil, but striving to reason against it.

"He has come about the lease, no doubt," he argued."I wish the question was settled. After all, its consequence is disproportionate to the annoyance. I would rather sign it blindly than have that young man ten minutes in the room with me."

It was a strange sensation, but the baronet absolutely felt a thrill of dread pass through him as the light footsteps of Richard Storms approached the library, and when he came softly through the door, closing it after him, a slow pallor crept over his face, and he shrunk back with inward repulsion.

Storms, too, was pale, for it required something more than brute courage to break the wicked business he was on to a man so gentle and so proud as Sir Noel Hurst. With all his audacity he began to cringe under the grave, quiet glance of inquiry bent upon him.

"I have come, Sir Noel—that is, I am wanting to see you about a little business of my own."

"I understand," answered the baronet. "Your father wishes a new lease to be made out, and some additional land for yourself. I think that was the proposition."

"Yes, Sir Noel, only the old man was backward in saying all that he wanted, and so I came to finish the matter up, knowing more than he does, and feeling sure that your honor would want to oblige me."

"I am always ready to oblige any good tenant," answered Sir Noel, smiling gravely at what he considered the young man's conceit; "but think that wish should apply to your father rather than yourself, as he is in reality the tenant; but if you are acting for him, it amounts to the same thing."

"No, Sir Noel, it isn't the same thing at all. I came here on my own business, with which my father has nothing to do. His lease is safe enough, being promised;but I want the uplands, with a patch of good shooting-ground, which no man living will have the right to carry a gun over without my leave."

"Anything else?" questioned Sir Noel, with quiet irony, smiling in spite of himself.

"Yes, Sir Noel, there is something else," rejoined the young man, kindling into his natural audacity. "I want a house built on the place. No thatched cottage or low-roofed farm-house, but the kind of house a gentleman should live in, who shoots over his own land, for which he is expected to pay neither rent nor tithes."

"That is, you wish me to give you a handsome property on which you can live like a gentleman? Do I understand your very modest request aright?"

"Not all of it. I haven't done yet."

"Indeed! Pray, go on."

"There isn't land enough out of lease to keep a gentleman, whose wife will have all the taste of a lady, being educated as the chief friend and associate of Sir Noel Hurst's ward. So I make it a condition that some fair income in money should be secured on the property."

"A condition! You—"

"Yes, Sir Noel, it has come to that. I make conditions, and you grant them."

Sir Noel's derisive smile deepened into a gentle laugh.

"Young man, are you mad? Nothing short of that can excuse this bombast," he said at last, reaching out his hand to ring the bell.

"Don't ring!" exclaimed Storms, sharply. "You are welcome to the laugh, but don't ring. Our business must be done without witnesses, for your own sake."

"For my own sake? What insolence is this?"

"Well, if that does not suit, I will say for the sake of your son!"

The blow was struck. Sir Noel's face blanched to the lips; but his eyes kindled and his form was drawn up haughtily.

"Well, sir, what have you to say of my son?"

"This much, Sir Noel. He has been poaching on my grounds, which I don't think you will like better than I do, letting alone the Lady Rose."

Sir Noel rose to his feet.

"Silence, sir! Do not dare take that lady's name into your lips."

Storms stepped back, frightened by the hot anger he had raised.

"I—I did but speak of her, Sir Noel, because the whole country round have thought that she was to be the lady of 'Norston's Rest.'"

"Well, sir, who says that she will not?"

"I say it! I, whose sweetheart and almost wedded mate he has made a by-word, and I do believe means to make his wife, rather than let the bargain settled between William Jessup and my father come to anything."

"What—what reason have you for thinking so?" questioned the baronet, dismayed by this confirmation of fears that had been a sore trouble to him.

"What reason, Sir Noel? Ask him about his private meetings with Ruth Jessup in the park—in her father's house—by the lake—"

"I shall not ask him. Such questions would insult an honorable man."

"An honorable man! Then ask him where he was an hour before William Jessup was shot. Ask him why the old man went out in search of him, and why a discharged gun, bruised about the stock, was found under that old cedar-tree. If your son refuses to answer, questionthe girl herself, my betrothed wife. Ask her about his coming to the cottage, while the old man was away. These are not pleasant questions, I dare say; but they will give you a reason why I am here, why the land I want must be had, and why I am ready to pay for it by marrying the only girl that stands in the way of your ward, without asking too many questions. You would not have the offer from many fellows, I can tell you."

Sir Noel had slowly dropped into his chair, as this coarse speech was forced upon him. His own fears, hidden under the habitual reserve of a proud nature, gave force to every word the young man uttered. He was convinced that a revolting scandal, if not grave troubles, might spring out of the secret this young man was ready to sell and cover for the price he had stated. But great as this fear was, such means of concealment seemed impossible to his honorable nature. He could not force himself into negotiations with the dastard, who seemed to have no sense of honor or shame. The dead silence maintained by the baronet made Storms restless. He had retreated a little, when Sir Noel sat down; but drew near the table again with cat-like stillness, and leaning upon it with both hands, bent forward, and whispered:

"Now I leave it to you, if the price I ask for taking her, and keeping a close mouth, isn't dog-cheap?"

"Yes, dog-cheap," exclaimed the baronet, drawing his chair back, while a flush of unmitigated disgust swept across the pallor of his face. "But I do not deal with dogs!"

Storms started upright, with a snarl that seemed to come from the animal to which he felt himself compared, and for a moment his face partook of the resemblance.

"Such animals have been dangerous before now!" he said, with a hoarse threat in his voice.

Sir Noel turned away from that vicious face, sick with disgust.

"If a harmless bark is not enough to start you into taking care of yourself, take the bite. I did not mean to give it yet, but you will have it. If you will not pay my price for your son's honor, do it to save his life, for it was he who killed William Jessup."

Sir Noel arose from his seat, walked across the room and rang the bell. When the servant answered it he pointed toward the door, saying very quietly, "Show this person out."

PLEADING FOR DELAY.

HADher sin killed that good old man? Was the penalty of what seemed but an evasion, death—death to the being she loved better than any other on earth save one, that one suffering also from her fault? Had she, in her fond selfishness, turned that pretty home-nest into a tomb? Had God so punished her for this one offence, that she must never lift her head to the sunlight again?

Sitting there alone in the midst of the shadows that gathered around her with funereal solemnity, Ruth asked herself this question, pressing her slender hands together, and shivering with nervous cold as she looked around on the dark objects in the little room, linked with such cruel tenderness to the father she had lost, that they seemed to reproach her on every side.

"Ah, me! I cannot stay here all alone—all alone, andhe gone! It is like sitting in a well. My feet are like ice. My tears are turning to hoar-frost. But he is colder than I am—happier, too, for he could die. One swift trouble pierced him, and he fell; but they shoot me through and through without killing. After all, I am more unhappy than the dead. If he knew this, oh, how my poor father would pity me! How he would long to take me with him, knowing that I have done wrong, but am not wicked! Oh, does he understand this? Will the angels be merciful, and let him know?"

The poor child was not weeping, but sat there in the shadows of that home from which she had sent away her best friends, terrified by the darkness, dumb and trodden down under the force of her own reproaches, which beat upon her heart as the after swell of a tempest tramples the resistless shore. It seemed as if existence for her must henceforth be a continued atonement, that could avail nothing. In all the black horizon there was, for this child, but one gleam of light, and that broke upon her like a sin.

Her husband! She had seen him for one dizzy moment; his head had rested on her bosom. While panting with weakness, and undue exertion, he had found time to whisper how dear she was to him. Yes, yes! there was one ray of hope for her yet. It had struck her father down like a flash of lightning, and the very thought of it blinded her soul. Still the light was there, though she was afraid to look upon it.

A noise at the gate, a step on the gravel, a wild bound of her wounded heart, and then it fell back aching. Hurst came in slowly; he was feeble yet, and excitement had left him pale. Ruth arose, but did not go forward to meet him. She dared not, but stood trembling fromhead to foot. He came forward with his arms extended.

"Ruth! My poor girl; my dear, sweet wife!"

She answered him with a great sob, and fell upon his bosom, weeping passionately. His voice had lifted her out of the solemnity of her despair. She was no longer in a tomb.

"Do not sob so, my poor darling. Am I not here?" said the young man, pressing her closer and closer to his bosom.

She clung to him desperately, still convulsed with grief.

"Be tranquil. Do compose yourself, my beloved."

"I am so lonely," she said, "and I feel so terribly wicked. Oh, Walton, we killed him. You and I. No, no; not that. I did it. No one else could."

"Hush, hush, darling! This is taking upon yourself pain without cause. I come to say this, knowing it would give you a little comfort. I questioned the doctor. They sent for him again, for I was suffering from the shock, and nearly broken down. Ill as I was, this death preyed upon me worse than the fever, so I questioned the doctor closely. I demanded that he should make sure of the causes that led to your father's death. He did make sure. While you were shut up in your room, mourning and inconsolable, there was a medical examination. Your father might have lived a few hours longer but for the sudden shock of my presence here; but he must have died from his wound. No power on earth could have saved him. That was the general opinion."

Ruth hushed her sobs, and lifted her face, on which the tears still trembled; for the first time since her father's death a gleam of hope shone in her eyes.

"Is this so, Walton?"

"Indeed it is. I would have broken loose from them all, and told you this before, but my presence seemed to drive you wild."

"It did—it did."

"That terrible night you sent me from the house, with such pitiful entreaties to be left alone. You preferred to be with the dead rather than me."

"That was when I thought we had killed him. That was when I felt like a murderess. But it is over now. I can breathe again. He is gone—my poor father is gone, but I did not kill him—I did not kill him! Oh, Walton, there is no sin in my kisses now; nothing but tears."

The poor young creature trembled under this shock of new emotions. The great horror was gone. She no longer clung to her husband with the feeling of a criminal.

"You have suffered, my poor child. We have both suffered, because I was selfishly rash; more than that, a coward."

"No, no. Rash, but not a coward," broke in Ruth, impetuously. "You shrunk from giving pain, that is all."

"But I shrink no longer. That which we have done must be publicly known."

"How? What are you saying?"

"That you are my wife, my honored and beloved wife, and as such Sir Noel, nay, the whole world, must know you."

Then Ruth remembered Richard Storms, and his dangerous threats. She was enfeebled by long watching, and terrified by the thought of new domestic tempests.

"Not yet, oh, not yet. Walton, you terrify me."

"But, my darling!—"

"Not yet, I say. Let us rest a little. Let us stop and draw breath before we breast another storm. I have no strength for it."

"But, Ruth, this is no home for you."

"The dear home—the dear old home. I was afraid of it. I shuddered in it only a little while ago; but now it is no longer a prison, no longer a sepulchre. I cannot bear to leave it."

"Ruth, your home is up yonder. It should have been so from the first, only I had not the courage to resist your pleadings for delay; but now—"

"But now you will wait because I so wish it. Oh, Walton, I have not the courage to ask a place under your father's roof. Give me a little time."

"It is natural that you should shrink, being a woman," said Hurst, kissing the earnest face lifted to his. "But it shames me to have set you the example."

Ruth answered this with pathetic entreaty, which she strove to render playful.

"Being two culprits. One brave, the other a poor coward, you will have compassion, and let her hide away yet a while."

"No, Ruth! We—I have done wrong, but for the hurt that struck me down, I should have told my father long ago. I meant to do it the very next day. It was his entreaties that I dreaded, not his wrath. I doubted myself, more than his forgiveness. Had he been less generous, less noble, I should not have cared to conceal anything from him."

"But having done so, let it rest a while, Walton; I am so weary, so afraid."

Ruth wound her arms around the young man's neck, and enforced her entreaties with tearful caresses. She was, indeed, completely broken down. He felt that it would be cruelty to force her into new excitements now, and gave way.

"Be it as you wish," he said, gently. "Only remember you have no protector here, and it is not for my honor that the future lady of 'The Rest' should remain long in any home but that of her husband."

"Yes, I know, but this place has been so dear to me. Remember, will you, that the little birds are never taken from the nest all at once. They first flutter, then poise themselves on the side, by-and-by hop off to a convenient twig, flutter to a branch and back again. I am in the nest, and afraid, as yet. Do you understand?"

"Yes, darling, I understand."

"And you will say nothing, as yet. Hush!" whispered Ruth, looking wildly over his shoulder. "I hear something."

"It is nothing."

"How foolish I am! Of course it is nothing. We are quite alone; but every moment it seems as if I must hear my father's step on the threshold, as I heard it that night. It frightened me, then; now I could see him without dread, because I think that he knows how it is."

"Before many days we shall be able to see the whole world without dread," answered Hurst, very tenderly. "Till then, good-night."

"Good-night, Walton, good-night. You see that I can smile, now. I have lost my father, but the bitterness of sorrow is all gone. I had other troubles and some fears that seemed important while he was alive; but now I can hardly remember them. Great floods swallow upeverything in their way. I have but just come out of the storm where it seemed as if I was wrecked forever. So I have no little troubles, now. Good-by. I shall dream after this. Good-by."

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