There she lingered a while, holding her breath with dread. It was scarcely dark, but to her it seemed impossible that so few hours could have pa.s.sed since she had stolen from her home. Surely, surely, her father must have returned. She would find him standing in the park, ready to arraign and judge her for the thing she had done; or he might come out to find her wandering among the ferns, so happy, yet so terrified, that she would like to stay there forever, like a bird in sight of its nest, trembling while it watched over its trust of love.

The purple twilight was just veiling the soft, green gloom of the trees with its tender darkness. Now and then a pale flash of gold shot through the leaves, giving signs that the evening had but just closed in. Still the girl hesitated. Almost, for the first time in her life, she feared to meet her father face to face. The taste of forbidden fruit was on her lips, tainted with the faint bitterness of coming ashes.

"I will go home--I must!" she said, rising from a fragment of rock that had given her a seat among the ferns. "There is yet a quiver of crimson in the air. It cannot be ten yet!"

The girl walked slowly and cautiously on until a curve in the path brought her in sight of the cottage. Then her pent-up breath came forth in a glad exclamation.

"It is dark yet! No one has been there in all this time!"

Poor child! It seemed an age since she had left the house, and a miracle that she should have found it so still and solitary. When she entered the porch, the light of a rising moon was trembling down to the honeysuckles that clung to it, and a cloud of dewy fragrance seemed to welcome her home again tenderly, as if she had no deception in her heart, and was not trembling from head to foot with vague apprehensions.

Taking a heavy key from under one of the seats which ran along each side of the porch, she opened the door and went into her home again.

The moonlight came flickering through the oriel window, as if a bunch of silver arrows had been shivered against it, half illuminating the room with a soft, beautiful light. Ruth would gladly have sat down in this tranquil gloom, and given herself up to such dreams as follow a full certainty of being beloved, but the hoa.r.s.e old clock tw.a.n.ged out the hour with a force that absolutely frightened her. She had not self-possession enough to count its strokes, but shuddered to think the night had possibly reached ten o'clock.

She lighted a lamp, looked around to make sure that nothing had been left that could betray her, then ran up-stairs, flung off her sad-colored dress, set all her rich hair free, and came down in the jaunty red over-dress and black skirt that had given her beauty such picturesque effect in the morning. All day she had been pale and feverishly flushed by turns. Now a sense of safety gave her countenance a permanent richness of color that would have been dazzling in a broader light than that lamp could give. She was under shelter in her own familiar garment; could it be that all the rest was a dream? Had she, in fact, been married?

A quick, frightened gasp answered the question. The lamp-light fell on a heavy circlet of new gold, that glittered on her finger.

Yes, it was there! His hand had pressed it upon hers; his lips had kissed it reverently. Must she take it off? Was there no way of concealing the precious golden shackle, that seemed to hold her life in?

That was impossible. That small, shapely hand had never felt the touch of ornament or ring before. The blaze of it seemed to light the whole room. Her father would see it and question her. No, no! it must be hid away before he came. She ran up-stairs, opened her bureau-drawer, and began to search eagerly for a ribbon narrow enough to escape attention. Knots of pink, and streamers of scarlet were there neatly arranged, but nothing that might answer her purpose, except a thread of black ribbon which had come out of her mourning two years before, when her mother died.

Ruth s.n.a.t.c.hed this up and swung her wedding-ring upon it, too much excited for superst.i.tion at the moment, and glad to feel the perilous gift safe in her bosom.

Now all was hidden, no trace of her fault had been left. She might dare to look at the old clock.

It lacked an hour and more of the time at which she might expect her father. Well, fortunately, she had something to do. His supper must be prepared. She would take good care of him now. He should lack nothing at her hands, since she had given him such grievous cause of offence.

With these childlike ideas of atonement in her mind, Ruth took up a lamp, and going into the kitchen, kindled a fire; and spreading a white cloth on the table, set out the supper her father had desired of her. When the cold beef and mustard, the bread and cheese, were all daintily arranged, she bethought herself of his most favored dish of all, and taking a posset-dish of antique silver from the cupboard, half filled it with milk, which she set upon the coals to boil. Into this she from time to time broke bits of wheaten bread, and when the milk was all afoam, poured a cup of strong ale into it, which instantly resolved the whole ma.s.s into golden whey and snow-white curd.

As Ruth stooped over the posset-cup, shading her face with one hand from the fire, and stirring its contents gently with a spoon, a noise at the window made her start and cry out with a suddenness that nearly upset the silver porringer.

"Who is it? What is it?" she faltered, looking at the window with strained eyes. "Oh, have mercy! That face, that face!"

Before she could move away from the hearth, some one shook the window-sash so violently, that a rain of dew fell from the ivy cl.u.s.tering around it.

Ruth stood appalled; every vestige of color fled from her face; but she gave no further sign of the terror that shook her from head to foot. Directly the keen, handsome face that had peered through the gla.s.s disappeared, and the footsteps of a man walking swiftly sounded back from the gravel path which led to the front door.

CHAPTER XVII.

A STORMY ENCOUNTER.

Ruth held her breath and listened. She heard the door open, and footsteps in the little pa.s.sage. Then her natural courage aroused itself, and lifting the posset-cup from the coals, she left it on the warm hearth, and met the intruder at the kitchen door.

"Is it you?" she said, with a quiver of fear in her voice. "I am sorry father is not at home."

"But I am not," answered the young man, setting down a gun he had brought in, behind the door. "It was just because he wasn't here, and I knew it, that I came in. It is high time, miss, that you and I should have a talk together, and no father to put in his word between pipes."

"What do you want? Why should you wish to speak with me at this time of night?"

"Why, now, I like that," answered the young fellow, with a laugh that made Ruth shudder. "Well, I'll just come in and have my say. There mayn't be another chance like this."

Richard Storms turned and advanced a step, as if he meant to enter the little parlor, but Ruth called him back. It seemed to her like desecration, that this man should tread on the same floor that Hurst, her husband--oh, how the thought swelled her heart!--had walked over.

"Not there," she said. "I must mind my father's supper. He will be home in a few minutes."

"Well, I don't much care; the kitchen seems more natural. It is here that we used to sit before the young master found out how well-favored you are, as if he couldn't find comely faces enough at the house, but must come poaching down here on my warren."

"Who are you speaking of? I cannot make it out," faltered Ruth, turning cold.

"Who? As if you didn't know well enough; as if I didn't see you and him talking together thick as two bees this very morning."

"No, no!" protested Ruth, throwing out both her hands. "You could not--you did not!"

"But I did, though, and the gun just trembled of itself in my hand, it so wanted to be at him. If it hadn't been that you seemed offish, and he looked black as a thunder-clap, I couldn't have kept my hand from the trigger."

"That would have been murder," whispered the girl, through her white lips.

"Murder, would it? That's according as one thinks. What do men carry a gun at night for, let me ask you, but to keep the deer and the birds safe from poachers? If they catch them at it, haven't they a right to fire? Well, Ruth, you are my game, and my gun takes care of you as keepers protect the deer. It will be safe to warn the young master of that!"

"I do not know--I cannot understand--"

"Oh, you don't, ha!" broke in the young man, throwing himself into a chair and stretching out his legs on the hearth. "Well, then, I'll tell you a secret about him that'll take the starch out of your pride.

You're not the only girl with a pretty face that brings him among my covers!"

"What?"

"Ah, ha! Oh, ho! That wakes you up, does it? I thought so. Nothing like a swoop of spite to bring a girl out of cover."

"I do not understand you," said Ruth, flashing out upon her tormentor with sudden spirit. "What have I to do with anything you are talking about?"

"The other la.s.s, you mean. Not much, of course. It isn't likely he put her in your way."

A burst of indignation, perhaps of something more stinging than that, filled the splendid eyes with fire that Ruth fixed upon her tormentor.

"Do you know--can you even guess that it is my--my--!"

The girl broke her imprudent speech off with a thrill of warning that left the prints of her white teeth on the burning lips which had almost betrayed her. In her terror the insult that followed was almost a relief.

"Sweetheart!" sneered the young man.

She did not heed the word or sneer; both were a proof that her secret was safe as yet.

"One up at the house, one here, and another--well, no matter about her. You understand?"