Storms did read enough to see how important the paper might become. He glanced from it to the firmly set and triumphant features of the girl.

"You brought it for me. You will give it to me!"

"No!" answered Judith, folding the paper. "Not till we come from the church."

With the leap of a tiger Storms sprang upon the girl, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the paper; but she, wary and agile as himself, leaped aside, and fled like a deer down the declivity, sending a ringing laugh, full of mockery, back to the baffled man.

In an instant, he was flying after her, his teeth set hard, his eyes gleaming, and every leap bringing him nearer to her, and her nearer to the lake.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S VISIT.

Ruth Jessup was almost happy, now. From a place of care and dread her father's sick-room had become a pleasant little haven of rest to her.

Perfect confidence had returned between the father and child, broken only by a consciousness of one secret. Sooner or later, he should know the secret of her marriage, and rejoice over the son it had given him.

Of course, the girl thought all things must be well, now that her father had communicated with the young master; otherwise, that look of calm tranquillity would never have settled so gently on the face that seemed to have given up its pain; from the moment she had gone forth with that letter. All was right between those two, and, knowing this, the girl felt her secret only as a sweet love-burden, which, sooner or later, should make that dear father proud and happy, as she hoped to be herself.

Thus, all the day long, the girl flitted about the cottage, doing her humble household work with dainty grace. One particular morning she was sitting on her father's bed, dropping strawberries into his mouth, giving a little start, when he made a playful snap at her stained fingers, which was pleasant, though the effort brought a twinge of pain to him, and a pretty affected cry, often broke into a laugh, from her.

"There, now, you shall not have another," she said, taking the hull of a luscious berry between her thumb and finger, and holding it out of reach, tempting his thirsty mouth with its red ripeness. "Bite the hand that feeds you--oh, for shame!"

"Nothing but a false hound does that," said the sick man, far more seriously than the occasion demanded.

"A hound! oh, father, that is too bad. I meant nothing like that. See, now, here is the plumpest and ripest of all. Wait till I dip it in the sugar. It seems like rolling it in snow, don't it?"

The invalid opened his mouth and smiled, as the rich fruit melted on his feverish tongue.

"What is it, father?" questioned the girl, as a shadow chased away the smile. "What is the matter, now?"

"Nothing; really nothing, child; only I thought there was a step under the window."

Ruth listened, and the color left her face. She bent down to her father, and stole an arm around his neck. Then he felt that the arm was trembling like a reed in the wind.

"Oh, father, you will not let him come here again? It will kill me, if you do."

"Hush, hush, la.s.s! Remember, he has my promise."

"But not mine. Oh, father, do not be so cruel."

A step sounded in the lower pa.s.sage. Ruth grew pale as she listened.

The footsteps paused near the stairs, and a voice called out, "Ruthy!

I say, Ruthy!"

Ruth sprang from the bed with a little cry of joy, and flinging open the door, looked over the banister.

"Is it you? Is it only you, G.o.dmother? Come up, come up!"

Mrs. Mason accepted the invitation, planting her feet so firmly on the narrow stairs that they shook under her.

"Of course, I know he is better by the look of your face," said the dame, pausing to draw a deep breath before she entered the sick man's room. "You need not trouble yourself to ask; all is going on well at 'The Rest.' The young master walks across the room now, and lies on the couch near the window, looking out as if he pined for the free air again, as who wouldn't, after such a bout of illness?"

Ruth did not speak, but her face flushed, and her eyes sparkled through the droop of their long lashes. She knew that the window her G.o.dmother spoke of looked across the flower-garden to their own cottage, and her fond heart beat all the faster for the knowledge.

"So, at last, an old friend can win a sight of you," said dame Mason, crossing over to the bed where Jessup lay, and patting the great hand which rested on the coverlet with her soft palm; "and right glad I am to find you are looking so well."

Jessup looked at Ruth, and smiled.

"She takes such care of me, how can I help it?" he said.

"Aye, truly. It will be hard when you have to part with her, I must say that; but such is human nature. We rear them up, get to loving them like our own hearts, and away they go, building nests for themselves. Her mother did it for you, remember; and so it will be while human nature is human nature."

Jessup heaved a deep sigh, and looked at his daughter with wistful earnestness. She answered him with a glance of tender appeal, from which he turned to the dame with a little gleam of triumph.

"There is the rub, Mrs. Mason. My la.s.s will not listen to leaving her old father, but fights against it like a bird that loves its cage, all the more fiercely now that I am down."

Mrs. Mason wheeled round, and looked at Ruth from under her heavy eyebrows, as if she doubted what the father had been saying.

"Aye, little one, we know better than that," she said. "But I don't quite like this. Cheating a sick man may be for his good; but I don't like it, I don't like it."

"Cheating," faltered Ruth, conscience-stricken. "Oh, G.o.dmother."

"Well, well, the old saying, that all things is fair in love or war, may be true; but I don't believe it. According to my idea, truth is truth, and nothing can be safer or better, in the long run. Mark this, G.o.ddaughter, the first minute you get out of the line of truth, casts you, headforemost, into all sorts of trouble. One must wind and turn, like a fox, to get out of a deceit, if one ever does get out, which I'm not sure of."

Ruth stood before the good housekeeper, as she promulgated this homely opinion, like a detected culprit. Her color came and went, her eyelids drooped, and a weight seemed to settle, like lead, upon her shoulders. This evident distress touched the housekeeper with compa.s.sion.

"There, there," she said, "I did not mean to be hard. Young folks will be young folks--ha, Jessup? You and I can remember when more sweethearting was done on the sly than we should like to own up to; and young Storms is likely to be heir to the best farm on Sir Noel's estate, though, I must say, he was never much to my liking. These sharp-faced young men never were. Mason was of full weight and tallness, or he never would have fastened a name on me."

Ruth was no longer blushing one instant and paling the next, for a vivid flush of crimson swept her whole face.

"What are you talking about, G.o.dmother?" she questioned, with a little, scornful laugh, which irritated the good dame.

"What am I talking of? Nay, nay, I have made you blush more than is kind already. Never heed my nonsense. It is natural that I should think no one good enough, and feel a little uppish that things have gone so far without one word to the old woman that loved you as if you were her own."

"What do you mean? What can you mean, G.o.dmother?" cried Ruth, with unusual courage.

"Oh, nothing. The news was over the whole neighborhood before I heard of it; but that's nothing."

"What news? Do tell me?"

"Why, that young Storms and my G.o.ddaughter would be married as soon as friend Jessup, here, is well enough to be at the wedding."

"Father, father, do you hear that? Who has dared to slander me so cruelly?" cried the girl, bursting into a pa.s.sion of tears.

Jessup was greatly troubled by his daughter's grief.