"Will you come into the house?" she asked.

"With your leave we can talk better here. . . . So you guessed that I made one of the party? Miss Vyell told me."

"It was not difficult to guess."

"And you admired my courage?"

Ruth's eyebrows went up to a fine arch. "When you were careful to keep in hiding?"

"From motives of delicacy, believe me. It occurred to me that Lady Caroline might--er--speak her mind, and I had no wish to be distressed by it, or to distress you with my presence."

"I thank you for so much delicacy, sir."

"But Lady Caroline--let us do her justice! She calls a spade a spade, but there's no malice in it. You stood up to her, I gather. We've been discussing you this morning, and you may take my word she don't think the worse of you for it. They're sportsmen, these high-born people.

I come of good family myself, and know the sort. 'Slog and take a slogging; shake hands and no bad blood'--that's their way. The fine old British way, after all." Mr. Silk puffed his cheeks and blew.

"You have been discussing me with Lady Caroline?"

"Yes," he answered flatly. "Yes," he repeated, and rolled his eyes.

"All for your good, you know. Of course she started by calling you names and taking the worst for granted. But I wouldn't have _that_."

"Go on, sir, if you please."

"I wouldn't have it, because I didn't believe it. If I did--hang it!-- I shouldn't be here. You might do me that justice."

"Why _are_ you here?"

"I'm coming to that; but first I want you to open your eyes to the position. You may think it's all very pretty and romantic and like Fair Rosamond--without the frailty as yet: that's granted. But how will it end? Eh? That's the question, if you'd bring your common sense to bear on it."

"Suppose you help me, sir," said Ruth meekly.

"That's right. I'm here to help, and in more ways than one. . . .

Well, I know Sir Oliver; Lady Caroline knows him too; and if it's marriage you're after, you might as well whistle the moon. You don't believe me?" he wound up, for she was eyeing him with an inscrutable smile.

She lifted her shoulder a little. "For the sake of your argument we will say that it is so."

"Then what's to be the end? I repeat. Look here, missy. We spar a bit when we meet, you and I; but I'd be sorry to see you go the way you're going. 'Pon my honour I would. You're as pretty a piece of flesh as a man could find on this side of the Atlantic, and what's a sharp tongue but a touch of spice to it? Piquancy, begad, to a fellow like me! . . .

And--what's best of all, perhaps--you'd pa.s.s for a lady anywhere."

She shrank back a pace before this incredible vulgarity; but not even yet did she guess the man's drift.

"So I put it to you, why not?" he continued, flushing as he came to the point and contemplated his prey. "You don't see yourself as a parson's wife, eh? You're not the cut. But for that matter _I'm_ not the ordinary cut of parson. T'other side of the water we'd fly high.

They'll not have heard of Port Na.s.sau, over there, nor of the little nest at Sabines; and with Lady Caroline to give us a jump-off--I have her promise. She runs a Chapel of her own, somewhere off St. James's.

Give me a chance to preach to the fashionable--let me get a foot inside the pulpit door--and, with you to turn their heads in the Mall below, strike me if I wouldn't finish up a Bishop! _La belle Sauvage_--they'd put it around I'd found my beauty in the backwoods, and converted her.

. . . Well, what d'ye say? Isn't that a prettier prospect than to end as Sir Oliver's cast-off?"

She put a hand backwards, and found a gate-rail to steady her.

"Ah! . . . How you dare!" she managed to murmur.

"Dare? Eh! you're thinking of Sir Oliver?" He laughed easily.

"Lady Caroline will put _that_ all right. He'll be furious at first, no doubt; my fine gentleman thinks himself the lion in the fable--when he shares out the best for himself, no dog dares bark. But we'll give him the go-by, and afterwards he can't squeal without showing himself the public fool. . . . Squeal? I hope he will. I owe him one."

At this moment young George and Increase Cordery came past the far corner of the house with their team, their harness-chains jingling as they rode afield. At sight of them a strong temptation a.s.sailed Ruth, but she thrust it from her.

"Sir"--she steadied her voice--"bethink you, please, that I have only to lift a hand and those two, with their brothers, will drag you through the farm pond."

Before he could answer, she called to them. As they turned and walked their horses towards her she glanced at Mr. Silk, half mischievously in spite of her fierce anger. He was visibly perturbed; but his face, mottled yellow with terror, suggested loathing rather than laughter.

"I am sorry to trouble you, but will you please fetch Mr. Silk's horse?

He must return at once."

When they were gone she turned to him.

"I am sorry to dismiss you thus, sir, after the--the honour you have done me; the more sorry because you will never understand."

Indeed--his scare having pa.s.sed--he was genuinely surprised, indignant.

"I understand this much," he answered coa.r.s.ely, "that I've offered to make you an honest woman, but you prefer to be--" The word was on his tongue-tip, but hung fire there.

She had turned her back on him, and stood with her arms resting for support on the upper rail of the gate. She heard him walk away towards the stable-yard. . . . By-and-by she heard him ride off--heard the click of the gate behind him. A while after this she listened, and then bowed her face upon her arms.

Chapter XV.

THE CHOOSING.

The minutes pa.s.sed, and still she leaned there. At long intervals, when a sob would not be repressed, her shoulders heaved and fell. But it was characteristic of Ruth Josselin throughout her life that she hated to indulge in distress, even when alone. As a child she had been stoical; but since the day of her ordeal in Port Na.s.sau she had not once wept in self-pity. She had taught herself to regard all self-pity as shameful.

She made no sound. The morning heat had increased, and across it the small morning noises of the farm were borne drowsily--the repeated strokes of a hatchet in the backyard, where young Lemuel split logs; the voice of Mrs. Cordery, also in the backyard, calling the poultry for their meal of Indian corn; the opening and shutting of windows as rooms were redded and dusted; lastly, Miss Quiney's tentative touch on the spinet. Sir Oliver in his lordly way had sent a spinet by cart from Boston; and Tatty, long since outstripped by her pupil, had a trick of picking out pa.s.sages from the more difficult pieces of music and "sampling" them as she innocently termed it--a few chords now and again, but melodies for the most part, note by note hesitatingly attempted with one finger.

For a while these noises fell on Ruth's ear unheeded. Then something like a miracle happened.

Of a sudden either the noises ceased or she no longer heard them.

It was as if a hush had descended on the farmstead; a hush of expectancy. Still leaning on the gate, she felt it operate within her--an instantaneous calm at first, soothing away the spirit's anguish as though it were ointment delicately laid on a bodily wound. Not an ache, even, left for reminder! but healing peace at a stroke, and in the hush of it small thrills awaking, stirring, soft ripples scarcely perceptible, stealing, hesitating, until overtaken by reinforcements of bliss and urged in a flood, bathing her soul.

_He_ was near! He must be here, close at hand!

She lifted her head and gazed around. For minutes her closed eyeb.a.l.l.s had been pressed down upon her arms, and the sunlight played tricks with her vision. Strange hues of scarlet and violet danced on the sky and around the fringes of the elms.

But he was there! Yes, beyond all doubting it was he. . . .

He had ridden in through the gateway on his favourite Bayard, and with a led horse at his side. He was calling, in that easy masterful voice of his, for one of the Cordery lads to take the pair to stable.

Lemuel came running.

In the act of dismounting he caught sight of her and paused to lift his hat. But before dismissing the horses to stable he looked them over, as a good master should.