PLEADING FOR DELAY.

Had her 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 G.o.d 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, and he gone! It is like sitting in a well. My feet are like ice. My tears are turning to h.o.a.r-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 sh.o.r.e. 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 from head 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 pa.s.sionately. 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 compa.s.sion, 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 n.o.ble, 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 up everything 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."