Ruth by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (page 2)

wooded, and was tinted by the young tender hues of the earliest summer, for all the trees of the wood had donned their leaves except the cautious ash, which here and there gave a soft, pleasant greyness to the landscape. Far away in the champaign were spires, and towers, and stacks of chimneys belonging to some distant hidden farmhouse, which were traced downwards through the golden air by the thin columns of blue smoke sent up from the evening fires. The view was bounded by some rising ground in deep purple shadow against the sunset sky. When first they stopped, silent with sighing pleasure, the air seemed full of pleasant noises; distant church-bells made harmonious music with the little singing-birds near at hand; nor were the lowings of the cattle nor the calls of the farm-servants discordant, for the voices seemed to be hushed by the brooding consciousness of the Sabbath. They stood loitering before the house, quietly enjoying the view. The clock in the little inn struck eight, and it sounded clear and sharp in the stillness.

“Can it be so late?” asked Ruth.

“I should not have thought it possible,” answered Mr. Bellingham. “But, never mind, you will be at home long before nine. Stay, there is a shorter road, I know, through the fields; just wait a moment, while I go in and ask the exact way.” He dropped Ruth’s arm, and went into the public-house.

A gig had been slowly toiling up the sandy hill behind, unperceived by the young couple, and now it reached the tableland, and was close upon them as they separated. Ruth turned round, when the sound of the horse’s footsteps came distinctly as he reached the level. She faced Mrs. Mason!

They were not ten–no, not five yards apart. At the same moment they recognised each other, and, what was worse, Mrs. Mason had clearly seen, with her sharp, needle-like eyes, the attitude in which Ruth had stood with the young man who had just quitted her. Ruth’s hand had been lying in his arm, and fondly held there by his other hand.

Mrs. Mason was careless about the circumstances of temptation into which the girls entrusted to her as apprentices were thrown, but severely intolerant if their conduct was in any degree influenced by the force of these temptations. She called this intolerance “keeping up the character of her establishment.” It would have been a better and more Christian thing if she had kept up the character of her girls by tender vigilance and maternal care.

This evening, too, she was in an irritated state of temper. Her brother had undertaken to drive her round by Henbury, in order to give her the unpleasant information of the misbehaviour of her eldest son, who was an assistant in a draper’s shop in a neighbouring town. She was full of indignation against want of steadiness, though not willing to direct her indignation against the right object–her ne’er-do-well darling. While she was thus charged with anger (for her brother justly defended her son’s master and companions from her attacks), she saw Ruth standing with a lover, far away from home, at such a time in the evening, and she boiled over with intemperate displeasure.

“Come here directly, Miss Hilton,” she exclaimed sharply. Then, dropping her voice to low, bitter tones of concentrated wrath; she said to the trembling, guilty Ruth–

“Don’t attempt to show your face at my house again after this conduct. I saw you, and your spark too. I’ll have no slurs on the character of my apprentices. Don’t say a word. I saw enough. I shall write and tell your guardian to-morrow. The horse started away, for he was impatient to be off; and Ruth was left standing there, stony, sick, and pale, as if the lightning had tom up the ground beneath her feet. She could not go on standing, she was so sick and faint; she staggered back to the broken sand-bank, and sank down, and covered her face with her hands.

“My dearest Ruth! are you ill? Speak, darling! My love, my love, do speak to me!”

What tender words after such harsh ones! They loosened the fountain of Ruth’s tears, and she cried bitterly.

“Oh! did you see her–did you hear what she said?”

“She! Who, my darling? Don’t sob so, Ruth; tell me what it is. Who has been near you?–who has been speaking to you to make you cry so?”

“Oh, Mrs. Mason.” And there was a fresh burst of sorrow.

“You don’t say so! are you sure? I was not away five minutes.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I’m quite sure. She was so angry; she said I must never show my face there again. Oh, dear! what shall I do?”

It seemed to the poor child as if Mrs. Mason’s words were irrevocable, and, that being so, she was shut out from every house. She saw how much she had done that was deserving of blame, now when it was too late to undo it. She knew with what severity and taunts Mrs. Mason had often treated her for involuntary fallings, of which she had been quite unconscious; and now she had really done wrong, and shrank with terror from the consequences. Her eyes were so blinded by the fast-falling tears, she did not see (nor, had she seen, would she have been able to interpret) the change in Mr. Bellingham’s countenance, as he stood silently watching her. He was silent so long, that even in her sorrow she began to wonder that he did not speak, and to wish to hear his soothing words once more.

“It is very unfortunate,” he began, at last; and then he stopped; then he began again: “It is very unfortunate; for, you see, I did not like to name it to you before, but, I believe–I have business, in fact, which obliges me to go to town to-morrow–to London, I mean; and I don’t know when I shall be able to return.” “To London!” cried Ruth; “are you going away? Oh, Mr. Bellingham!” She wept afresh, giving herself up to the desolate feeling of sorrow, which absorbed all the terror she had been experiencing at the idea of Mrs. Mason’s anger. It seemed to her at this moment as though she could have borne everything but his departure; but she did not speak again; and, after two or three minutes had elapsed, he spoke–not in his natural careless voice, but in a sort of constrained, agitated tone.

“I can hardly bear the idea of leaving you, my own Ruth. In such distress, too; for where you can go I do not know at all. From all you have told me of Mrs. Mason, I don’t think she is likely to mitigate her severity in your case.”

No answer, but tears quietly, incessantly flowing. Mrs. Mason’s displeasure seemed a distant thing; his going away was the present distress. He went on–

“Ruth, would you go with me to London? My darling, I cannot leave you here without a home; the thought of leaving you at all is pain enough, but in these circumstances–so friendless, so homeless–it is impossible. You must come with me, love, and trust to me.”

Still she did not speak. Remember how young, and innocent, and motherless she was! It seemed to her as if it would be happiness enough to be with him; and as for the future, he would arrange and decide for that. The future lay wrapped in a golden mist, which she did not care to penetrate; but if he, her sun, was out of sight and gone, the golden mist became dark heavy gloom, through which no hope could come. He took her hand.

“Will you not come with me? Do you not love me enough to trust me? Oh, Ruth (reproachfully), can you not trust me?”

She had stopped crying, but was sobbing sadly.

“I cannot bear this, love. Your sorrow is absolute pain to me; but it is worse to feel how indifferent you are–how little you care about our separation.”

He dropped her hand. She burst into a fresh fit of crying.

“I may have to join my mother in Paris; I don’t know when I shall see you again. Oh, Ruth!” said he vehemently, “do you love me at all?”

She said something in a very low voice; he could not hear it, though he bent down his head–but he took her hand again.

“What was it you said, love? Was it not that you did love me? My darling, you do! I can tell it by the trembling of this little hand; then you will not suffer me to go away alone and unhappy, most anxious about you? There is no other course open to you; my poor girl has no friends to receive her. I will go home directly, and return in an hour with a carriage. You make me too happy by your silence, Ruth.”

“Oh, what can I do?” exclaimed Ruth. “Mr. Bellingham, you should help me, and instead of that you only bewilder me.”

“How, my dearest Ruth? Bewilder you! It seems so clear to me. Look at the case fairly! Here you are, an orphan, with only one person to love you, poor child!–thrown off, for no fault of yours, by the only creature on whom you have a claim, that creature a tyrannical, inflexible woman; what is more natural (and, being natural, more right) than that you should throw yourself upon the care of the one who loves you dearly–who would go through fire and water for you–who would shelter you from all harm? Unless, indeed, as I suspect, you do not care for him. If so, Ruth, if you do not care for me, we had better part–I will leave you at once; it will be better for me to go, if you do not care for me.”

He said this very sadly (it seemed so to Ruth, at least), and made as though he would have drawn his hand from hers; but now she held it with soft force.

“Don’t leave me, please, sir. It is very true I have no friend but you. Don’t leave me, please. But, oh! do tell me what I must do!”

“Will you do it if I tell you? If you will trust me, I will do my very best for you. I will give you my best advice. You see your position. Mrs. Mason writes and gives her own exaggerated account to your guardian; he is bound by no great love to you, from what I have heard you say, and throws you off; I, who might be able to befriend you–through my mother, perhaps–I, who could at least comfort you a little (could not I, Ruth?), am away, far away, for an indefinite time; that is your position at present. Now, what I advise is this. Come with me into this little inn; I will order tea for you–(I am sure you require it sadly)–and I will leave you there, and go home for the carriage. I will return in an hour at the latest. Then we are together, come what may; that is enough for me; is it not for you, Ruth? Say yes–say it ever so low, but give me the delight of hearing it. Ruth, say yes.”

Low and soft, with much hesitation, came the “Yes;” the fatal word of which she so little imagined the infinite consequences. The thought of being with him was all and everything.

“How you tremble, my darling! You are cold, love! Come into the house, and I’ll order tea, directly, and be off.”

She rose, and, leaning on his arm, went into the house. She was shaking and dizzy with the agitation of the last hour. He spoke to the civil farmer-landlord, who conducted them into a neat parlour, with windows opening into the garden at the back of the house. They had admitted much of the evening’s fragrance through their open casements before they were hastily closed by the attentive host.

“Tea, directly, for this lady!” The landlord vanished.

“Dearest Ruth, I must go; there is not an instant to be lost. Promise me to take some tea, for you are shivering all over, and deadly pale with the fright that abominable woman has given you. I must go; I shall be back in half an hour–and then no more partings, darling.”

He kissed her pale cold face, and went away. The room whirled round before Ruth; it was a dream–a strange, varying, shifting dream–with the old home of her childhood for one scene, with the terror of Mrs. Mason’s unexpected appearance for another; and then, strangest, dizziest, happiest of all, there was the consciousness of his love, who was all the world to her, and the remembrance of the tender words, which still kept up their low soft echo in her heart. Her head ached so much that she could hardly see; even the dusky twilight was a dazzling glare to her poor eyes; and when the daughter of the house brought in the sharp light of the candles, preparatory for tea, Ruth hid her face in the sofa pillows with a low exclamation of pain.

“Does your head ache, miss?” asked the girl, in a gentle, sympathising voice.

“Let me make you some tea, miss, it will do you good. Many’s the time poor mother’s headaches were cured by good strong tea.”

Ruth murmured acquiescence; the young girl (about Ruth’s own age, but who was the mistress of the little establishment owing to her mother’s death) made tea, and brought Ruth a cup to the sofa where she lay. Ruth was feverish and thirsty, and eagerly drank it off, although she could not touch the bread and butter which the girl offered her. She felt better and fresher, though she was still faint and weak.

“Thank you,” said Ruth. “Don’t let me keep you, perhaps you are busy. You have been very kind, and the tea has done me a great deal of good.”

The girl left the room. Ruth became as hot as she had previously been cold, and went and opened the window, and leant out into the still, sweet, evening air, The bush of sweet-brier underneath the window scented the place, and the delicious fragrance reminded her of her old home. I think scents affect and quicken the memory more than either sights or sound; for Ruth had instantly before her eyes the little garden beneath the window of her mother’s room with the old man leaning on his stick watching her, just as he had done not three hours before on that very afternoon.

“Dear old Thomas! he and Mary would take me in, I think; they would love me all the more if I were cast off. And Mr. Bellingham would, perhaps, not be so very long away; and he would know where to find me if I stayed at Milham Grange. Oh, would it not be better to go to them? I wonder if he would be very sorry! I could not bear to make him sorry, so kind as he has been to me; but I do believe it would be better to go to them, and ask their advice, at any rate. He would follow me there; and I could talk over what I had better do, with the three best friends I have in the world–the only friends I have.”

She put on her bonnet, and opened the parlour-door; but then she saw the square figure of the landlord standing at the open house-door, smoking his evening pipe, and looming large and distinct against the dark air and landscape beyond. Ruth remembered the cup of tea she had drunk; it must be paid for, and she had no money with her. She feared that he would not let her quit the house without paying. She thought that she would leave a note for Mr. Bellingham, saying where she was gone, and how she had left the house in debt, for (like a child) all dilemmas appeared of equal magnitude to her; and the difficulty of passing the landlord while he stood there, and of giving him an explanation of the circumstances (as far as such explanation was due to him), appeared insuperable, and as awkward and fraught with inconvenience as far more serious situations. She kept peeping out of her room, after she had written her little pencil-note, to see if the outer door was still obstructed. There he stood, motionless, enjoying his pipe, and looking out into the darkness which gathered thick with the coming night. The fumes of the tobacco were carried by the air into the house, and brought back Ruth’s sick headache. Her energy left her; she became stupid and languid, and incapable of spirited exertion; she modified her plan of action, to the determination of asking Mr. Bellingham to take her to Milham Grange, to the care of her humble friends, instead of to London. And she thought, in her simplicity, that he would instantly consent when he had heard her reasons.

She started up. A carriage dashed up to the door. She hushed her beating heart, and tried to stop her throbbing head, to listen. She heard him speaking to the landlord, though she could not distinguish what he said heard the jingling of money, and in another moment he was in the room, and had taken her arm to lead her to the carriage.

“Oh, sir, I want you to take me to Milham Grange,” said she, holding back; “old Thomas would give me a home.”

“Well, dearest, we’ll talk of all that in the carriage; I am sure you will listen to reason. Nay, if you will go to Milham, you must go in the carriage,” said he hurriedly. She was little accustomed to oppose the wishes of any one; obedient and docile by nature, and unsuspicious and innocent of any harmful consequences. She entered the carriage, and drove towards London.

CHAPTER V

IN NORTH WALES

The June of 18– had been glorious and sunny, and full of flowers; but July came in with pouring rain, and it was a gloomy time for travellers and for weather-bound tourists, who lounged away the days in touching up sketches, dressing flies, and reading over again, for the twentieth time, the few volumes they had brought with them. A number of the Times, five days old, had been in constant demand in all the sitting-rooms of a certain inn in a little mountain village of North Wales, through a long July morning. The valleys around were filled with thick, cold mist, which had crept up the hillsides till the hamlet itself was folded in its white, dense curtain, and from the inn-windows nothing was seen of the beautiful scenery around. The tourists who thronged the rooms might as well have been “wi’ their dear little bairnies at hame;” and so some of them seemed to think, as they stood, with their faces flattened against the windowpanes, looking abroad in search of an event to fill up the dreary time. How many dinners were hastened that day, by way of getting through the morning, let the poor Welsh kitchen-maid say! The very village children kept indoors; or, if one or two more adventurous stole out into the land of temptation and puddles, they were soon clutched back by angry and busy mothers.

It was only four o’clock, but most of the inmates of the inn thought it must be between six and seven, the morning had seemed so long–so many hours had passed since dinner–when a Welsh car, drawn by two horses, rattled briskly up to the door. Every window of the ark was crowded with faces at the sound; the leathern curtains were undrawn to their curious eyes, and out sprang a gentleman, who carefully assisted a well-cloaked-up lady into the little inn, despite the landlady’s assurances of not having a room to spare.

The gentleman (it was Mr. Bellingham) paid no attention to the speeches of the hostess, but quietly superintended the unpacking of the carriage, and paid the postillion; then, turning round, with his face to the light, he spoke to the landlady, whose voice had been rising during the last five minutes–

“Nay, Jenny, you’re strangely altered, if you can turn out an old friend on such an evening as this. If I remember right, Pen tre Voelas is twenty miles across the bleakest mountain-road I ever saw.”

“Indeed, sir, and I did not know you; Mr. Bellingham, I believe. Indeed, sir, Pen tre Voelas is not above eighteen miles–we only charge for eighteen; it may not be much above seventeen,–and we’re quite full, indeed, more’s the pity.”

“Well, but, Jenny, to oblige me, an old friend, you can find lodgings out for some of your people–that house across, for instance.”

“Indeed, sir, and it’s at liberty; perhaps you would not mind lodging there yourself. I could get you the best rooms, and send over a trifle or so of furniture, if they weren’t as you’d wish them to be.”

“No, Jenny, here I stay. You’ll not induce me to venture over into those rooms, whose dirt I know of old. Can’t you persuade some one who is not an old friend to move across? Say, if you like, that I had written beforehand to bespeak the rooms. Oh, I know you can manage it–I know your good-natured ways.”

“Indeed, sir! Well, I’ll see, if you and the lady will just step into the back-parlour, sir–there’s no one there just now; the lady is keeping her bed to-day for a cold, and the gentleman is having a rubber at whist in number three. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you–thank you! Is there a fire? if not, one must be lighted. Come, Ruthie, come!”

He led the way into a large bow-windowed room, which looked gloomy enough that afternoon, but which I have seen bright and buoyant with youth and hope within, and sunny lights creeping down the purple mountain slope, and stealing over the green, soft meadows, till they reached the little garden, full of roses and lavender-bushes, lying close under the window. I have seen–but I shall see no more.

“I did not know you had been here before,” said Ruth, as Mr. Bellingham helped her off with her cloak.

“Oh, yes; three years ago I was here on a reading party. We were here above two months, attracted by Jenny’s kind heart and oddities, but driven away finally by the insufferable dirt. However, for a week or two it won’t much signify.”

“But can she take us in? I thought I heard her saying her house was full.”

“Oh, yes, I dare say it is; but I shall pay her well. She can easily make excuses to some poor devil, and send him over to the other side; and for a day or two, so that we have shelter, it does not much signify.”

“Could not we go to the house on the other side?”

“And have our meals carried across to us in a half-warm state, to say nothing of having no one to scold for bad cooking! You don’t know these out-of-the-way Welsh inns yet, Ruthie.”

“No, I only thought it seemed rather unfair,” said Ruth gently; but she did not end her sentence, for Mr. Bellingham formed his lips into a whistle, and walked to the window to survey the rain.

The remembrance of his former good payment prompted many little lies of which Mrs. Morgan was guilty that afternoon, before she succeeded in turning out a gentleman and lady, who were only planning to remain till the ensuing Saturday at the outside; so, if they did fulfil their threat, and leave on the next day, she would be no very great loser.

These household arrangements complete, she solaced herself with tea in her own little parlour, and shrewdly reviewed the circumstances of Mr. Bellingham’s arrival.

“Indeed! and she’s not his wife,” thought Jenny, “that’s clear as day. His wife would have brought her maid, and given herself twice as many airs about the sitting-rooms; while this poor miss never spoke, but kept as still as a mouse. Indeed, and young men will be young men; and as long as their fathers and mothers shut their eyes, it’s none of my business to go about asking questions.”

In this manner they settled down to a week’s enjoyment of that Alpine country. It was most true enjoyment to Ruth. It was opening a new sense; vast ideas of beauty and grandeur filled her mind at the sight of the mountains, now first beheld in full majesty. She was almost overpowered by the vague and solemn delight; but by-and-by her love for them equalled her awe, and in the night-time she would softly rise, and steal to the window to see the white moon-light, which gave a new aspect to the everlasting hills that girdle the mountain village.

Their breakfast-hour was late, in accordance with Mr. Bellingham’s tastes and habits; but Ruth was up betimes, and out and away, brushing the dewdrops from the short crisp grass; the lark sung high above her head, and she knew not if she moved or stood still, for the grandeur of this beautiful earth absorbed all idea of separate and individual existence. Even rain was a pleasure to her. She sat in the window-seat of their parlour (she would have gone out gladly, but that such a proceeding annoyed Mr. Bellingham, who usually at such times lounged away the listless hours on a sofa, and relieved himself by abusing the weather); she saw the swift-fleeting showers come athwart the sunlight like a rush of silver arrows; she watched the purple darkness on the heathery mountain-side, and then the pale golden gleam which succeeded. There was no change or alteration of nature that had not its own peculiar beauty in the eyes of Ruth; but if she had complained of the changeable climate, she would have pleased Mr. Bellingham more: her admiration and her content made him angry, until her pretty motions and loving eyes soothed down his impatience.

“Really, Ruth,” he exclaimed one day, when they had been imprisoned by rain a whole morning, “one would think you had never seen a shower of rain before; it quite wearies me to see you sitting there watching this detestable weather with such a placid countenance; and for the last two hours you have said nothing more amusing or interesting than–‘Oh, how beautiful!’ or, ‘There’s another cloud coming across Moel Wynn.'”

Ruth left her seat very gently, and took up her work. She wished she had the gift of being amusing; it must be dull for a man accustomed to all kinds of active employments to be shut up in the house. She was recalled from her absolute self-forgetfulness. What could she say to interest Mr. Bellingham? While she thought, he spoke again–

“I remember when we were reading here three years ago, we had a week of just such weather as this; but Howard and Johnson were capital whist-players, and Wilbraham not bad, so we got through the days famously. Can you play ecarte, Ruth, or picquet?”

“No, sir; I have sometimes played at beggar-my-neighbour,” answered Ruth humbly, regretting her own deficiencies.

He murmured impatiently, and there was silence for another half-hour. Then he sprang up, and rang the bell violently. “Ask Mrs. Morgan for a pack of cards. Ruthie, I’ll teach you ecarte,” said he.

But Ruth was stupid, not so good as a dummy, he said; and it was no fun betting against himself. So the cards were flung across the table–on the floor–anywhere. Ruth picked them up. As she rose, she sighed a little with the depression of spirits consequent upon her own want of power to amuse and occupy him she loved.

“You’re pale, love!” said he, half repenting of his anger at her blunders over the cards. “Go out before dinner; you know you don’t mind this cursed weather; and see that you come home full of adventures to relate. Come, little blockhead! give me a kiss, and begone.”

She left the room with a feeling of relief; for if he were dull without her, she should not feel responsible, and unhappy at her own stupidity. The open air, that kind of soothing balm which gentle mother Nature offers to us all in our seasons of depression, relieved her. The rain had ceased, though every leaf and blade was loaded with trembling glittering drops. Ruth went down to the circular dale, into which the brown foaming mountain river fell and made a deep pool, and, after resting there for a while, ran on between broken rocks down to the valley below. The water-fall was magnificent, as she had anticipated; she longed to extend her walk to the other side of the stream, so she sought the stepping-stones, the usual crossing-place, which were overshadowed by trees, a few yards from the pool. The waters ran high and rapidly, as busy as life, between the pieces of grey rock; but Ruth had no fear, and went lightly and steadily on. About the middle, however, there was a great gap; either one of the stones was so covered with water as to be invisible, or it had been washed lower down; at any rate, the spring from stone to stone was long, and Ruth hesitated for a moment before taking it. The sound of rushing waters was in her ears to the exclusion of every other noise; her eyes were on the current running swiftly below her feet; and thus she was startled to see a figure close before her on one of the stones, and to hear a voice offering help.

She looked up and saw a man, who was apparently long past middle life, and of the stature of a dwarf; a second glance accounted for the low height of the speaker, for then she saw he was deformed. As the consciousness of this infirmity came into her mind, it must have told itself in her softened eyes; for a faint flush of colour came into the pale face of the deformed gentleman, as he repeated his words–

“The water is very rapid; will you take my hand? perhaps I can help you.” Ruth accepted the offer, and with this assistance she was across in a moment. He made way for her to precede him in the narrow wood path, and then silently followed her up the glen.

When they had passed out of the wood into the pasture-land beyond, Ruth once more turned to mark him. She was struck afresh with the mild beauty of the face, though there was something in the countenance which told of the body’s deformity, something more and beyond the pallor of habitual ill-health, something of a quick spiritual light in the deep-set eyes, a sensibility about the mouth; but altogether, though a peculiar, it was a most attractive face. “Will you allow me to accompany you if you are going the round by Cwm Dhu, as I imagine you are? The handrail is blown away from the little wooden bridge by the storm last night, and the rush of waters below may make you dizzy; and it is really dangerous to fall there, the stream is so deep.”

They walked on without much speech. She wondered who her companion might be. She should have known him, if she had seen him among the strangers at the inn; and yet he spoke English too well to be a Welshman; he knew the country and the paths so perfectly, he must be a resident; and so she tossed him from England to Wales, and back again, in her imagination.

“I only came here yesterday,” said he, as a widening in the path permitted them to walk abreast. “Last night I went to the higher waterfalls; they are most splendid.”

“Did you go out in all that rain?” asked Ruth timidly.

“Oh, yes. Rain never hinders me from walking. Indeed, it gives a new beauty to such a country as this. Besides, my time for my excursion is so short, I cannot afford to waste a day.”

“Then you do not live here?” asked Ruth.

“No! my home is in a very different place. I live in a busy town, where at times it is difficult to feel the truth that

‘There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of th’ everlasting chime; Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and crowded mart, Plying their task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.’

I have an annual holiday, which I generally spend in Wales; and often in this immediate neighbourhood.”

“I do not wonder at your choice,” replied Ruth. “It is a beautiful country.”

“It is, indeed; and I have been inoculated by an old inn-keeper at Conway with a love for its people, and history, and traditions. I have picked up enough of the language to understand many of their legends; and some are very fine and awe-inspiring, others very poetic and fanciful.”

Ruth was too shy to keep up the conversation by any remark of her own, although his gentle, pensive manner was very winning.

“For instance,” said he, touching a long bud-laden stem of foxglove in the hedge-aide, at the bottom of which one or two crimson-speckled flowers were bursting from their green sheaths, “I dare say, you don’t know what makes this fox-glove bend and sway so gracefully. You think it is blown by the wind, don’t you?” He looked at her with a grave smile, which did not enliven his thoughtful eyes, but gave an inexpressible sweetness to his face.

“I always thought it was the wind. What is it?” asked Ruth innocently.

“Oh, the Welsh tell you that this flower is sacred to the fairies, and that it has the power of recognising them, and all spiritual beings who pass by, and that it bows in deference to them as they waft along. Its Welsh name is Maneg Ellyllyn–the good people’s glove; and hence, I imagine, our folk’s-glove or fox-glove.”

“It’s a very pretty fancy,” said Ruth, much interested, and wishing that he would go on, without expecting her to reply. But they were already at the wooden bridge; he led her across, and then, bowing his adieu, he had taken a different path even before Ruth had thanked him for his attention.

It was an adventure to tell Mr. Bellingham, however; and it aroused and amused him till dinner-time came, after which he sauntered forth with a cigar.

“Ruth,” said he, when he returned, “I’ve seen your little hunchback. He looks like Riquet-with-the-Tuft. He’s not a gentleman, though. If it had not been for his deformity, I should not have made him out from your description; you called him a gentleman.”

“And don’t you?” asked Ruth, surprised.

“Oh, no! he’s regularly shabby and seedy in his appearance; lodging, too, the ostler told me, over that horrible candle-and-cheese shop, the smell of which is insufferable twenty yards off–no gentleman could endure it; he must be a traveller or artist, or something of that kind.”

“Did you see his face?” asked Ruth.

“No; but a man’s back–his tout ensemble has character enough in it to decide his rank.”

“His face was very singular; quite beautiful!” said she softly; but the subject did not interest Mr. Bellingham, and he let it drop.

CHAPTER VI

TROUBLES GATHER ABOUT RUTH

The next day the weather was brave and glorious; a perfect “bridal of the earth and sky;” and every one turned out of the inn to enjoy the fresh beauty of nature. Ruth was quite unconscious of being the object of remark; and, in her light, rapid passings to and fro, had never looked at the doors and windows, where many watchers stood observing her, and commenting upon her situation or her appearance.

“She’s a very lovely creature,” said one gentleman, rising from the breakfast-table to catch a glimpse of her as she entered from her morning’s ramble. “Not above sixteen I should think. Very modest and innocent-looking in her white gown!”

His wife, busy administering to the wants of a fine little boy, could only say (without seeing the young girl’s modest ways, and gentle, downcast countenance)–

“Well! I do think it’s a shame such people should be allowed to come here. To think of such wickedness under the same roof! Do come away, my dear, and don’t flatter her by such notice.”

The husband returned to the breakfast-table; he smelt the broiled ham and eggs, and he heard his wife’s commands. Whether smelling or hearing had most to do in causing his obedience, I cannot tell; perhaps you can.

“Now, Harry, go and see if nurse and baby are ready to go out with you. You must lose no time this beautiful morning.”

Ruth found Mr. Bellingham was not yet come down; so she sallied out for an additional half-hour’s ramble. Flitting about through the village, trying to catch all the beautiful sunny peeps at the scenery between the cold stone houses, which threw the radiant distance into aerial perspective far away, she passed by the little shop; and, just issuing from it, came the nurse and baby, and little boy. The baby sat in placid dignity in her nurse’s arms, with a face of queenly calm. Her fresh, soft, peachy complexion was really tempting; and Ruth, who was always fond of children, went up to coo and to smile at the little thing, and after some “peep-boing,” she was about to snatch a kiss, when Harry, whose face had been reddening ever since the play began, lifted up his sturdy little right arm and hit Ruth a great blow on the face.

“Oh, for shame, sir!” said the nurse, snatching back his hand; “how dare you do that to the lady who is so kind as to speak to Sissy!”

“She’s not a lady!” said he indignantly. “She’s a bad, naughty girl–mamma; said so, she did; and she shan’t kiss our baby.”

The nurse reddened in her turn. She knew what he must have heard; but it was awkward to bring it out, standing face to face with the elegant young lady.

“Children pick up such notions, ma’am,” said she at last, apologetically, to Ruth, who stood, white and still, with a new idea running through her mind.

“It’s no notion; it’s true, nurse; and I heard you say it yourself. Go away, naughty woman!” said the boy, in infantile vehemence of passion to Ruth. To the nurse’s infinite relief, Ruth turned away, humbly and meekly, with bent head, and slow, uncertain steps. But as she turned, she saw the mild sad face of the deformed gentleman, who was sitting at the open window above the shop; he looked sadder and graver than ever; and his eyes met her glance with an expression of deep sorrow. And so, condemned alike by youth and age, she stole with timid step into the house. Mr. Bellingham was awaiting her in the sitting-room. The glorious day restored all his buoyancy of spirits. He talked gaily away, without pausing for a reply; while Ruth made tea, and tried to calm her heart, which was yet beating with the agitation of the new ideas she had received from the occurrence of the morning. Luckily for her, the only answers required for some time were mono-syllables; but those few words were uttered in so depressed and mournful a tone, that at last they struck Mr. Bellingham with surprise and displeasure, as the condition of mind they unconsciously implied did not harmonise with his own.

“Ruth, what is the matter this morning? You really are very provoking. Yesterday, when everything was gloomy, and you might have been aware that I was out of spirits, I heard nothing but expressions of delight; to-day, when every creature under heaven is rejoicing, you look most deplorable and woe-begone. You really should learn to have a little sympathy.”

The tears fell quickly down Ruth’s cheeks, but she did not speak. She could not put into words the sense she was just beginning to entertain of the estimation in which she was henceforward to be held. She thought he would be as much grieved as she was at what had taken place that morning; she fancied she should sink in his opinion if she told him how others regarded her; besides, it seemed ungenerous to dilate upon the suffering of which he was the cause.

“I will not,” thought she, “embitter his life; I will try and be cheerful. I must not think of myself so much. If I can but make him happy, what need I care for chance speeches?”

Accordingly, she made every effort possible to be as light-hearted as he was; but, somehow, the moment she relaxed, thoughts would intrude, and wonders would force themselves upon her mind: so that altogether she was not the gay and bewitching companion Mr. Bellingham had previously found her.

They sauntered out for a walk. The path they chose led to a wood on the side of a hill, and they entered, glad of the shade of the trees. At first it appeared like any common grove, but they soon came to a deep descent, on the summit of which they stood, looking down on the tree-tops, which were softly waving far beneath their feet. There was a path leading sharp down, and they followed it; the ledge of rock made it almost like going down steps, and their walk grew into a bounding, and their bounding into a run, before they reached the lowest plane. A green gloom reigned there; it was the still hour of noon; the little birds were quiet in some leafy shade. They went on a few yards, and then they came to a circular pool overshadowed by the trees, whose highest boughs had been beneath their feet a few minutes before. The pond was hardly below the surface of the ground, and there was nothing like a bank on any side. A heron was standing there motionless, but when he saw them he flapped his wings and slowly rose; and soared above the green heights of the wood up into the very sky itself, for at that depth the trees appeared to touch the round white clouds which brooded over the earth. The speedwell grew in the shallowest water of the pool, and all around its margin, but the flowers were hardly seen at first, so deep was the green shadow cast by the trees. In the very middle of the pond the sky was mirrored clear and dark, a blue which looked as if a black void lay behind.

“Oh, there are water-lilies!” said Ruth, her eye catching on the farther side. “I must go and get some.”

“No; I will get them for you. The ground is spongy all round there. Sit still, Ruth; this heap of grass will make a capital seat.”

He went round, and she waited quietly for his return. When he came back he took off her bonnet, without speaking, and began to place his flowers in her hair. She was quite still while he arranged her coronet, looking up in his face with loving eyes, with a peaceful composure. She knew that he was pleased from his manner, which had the joyousness of a child playing with a new toy, and she did not think twice of his occupation. It was pleasant to forget everything except his pleasure. When he had decked her out, he said–

“There, Ruth! now you’ll do. Come and look at yourself in the pond. Here, where there are no weeds. Come.”

She obeyed, and could not help seeing her own loveliness; it gave her a sense of satisfaction for an instant, as the sight of any other beautiful object would have done, but she never thought of associating it with herself. She knew that she was beautiful; but that seemed abstract, and removed from herself. Her existence was in feeling and thinking, and loving.

Down in that green hollow they were quite in harmony. Her beauty was all that Mr. Bellingham cared for, and it was supreme. It was all he recognised of her, and he was proud of it. She stood in her white dress against the trees which grew around; her face was flushed into a brilliancy of colour which resembled that of a rose in June; the great, heavy, white flowers drooped on either side of her beautiful head, and if her brown hair was a little disordered, the very disorder only seemed to add a grace. She pleased him more by looking so lovely than by all her tender endeavours to fall in with his varying humour.

But when they left the wood, and Ruth had taken out her flowers, and resumed her bonnet, as they came near the inn, the simple thought of giving him pleasure was not enough to secure Ruth’s peace. She became pensive and sad, and could not rally into gaiety.

“Really, Ruth,” said he, that evening, “you must not encourage yourself in this habit of falling into melancholy reveries without any cause. You have been sighing twenty times during the last half-hour. Do be a little cheerful. Remember, I have no companion but you in this out-of-the-way place.”

“I am very sorry,” said Ruth, her eyes filling with tears; and then she remembered that it was very dull for him to be alone with her, heavy-hearted as she had been all day. She said in a sweet, penitent tone–

“Would you be so kind as to teach me one of those games at cards you were speaking about yesterday? I would do my best to learn.”

Her soft, murmuring voice won its way. They rang for the cards, and he soon forgot that there was such a thing as depression or gloom in the world, in the pleasure of teaching such a beautiful ignoramus the mysteries of card-playing.

“There!” said he, at last, “that’s enough for one lesson. Do you know, little goose, your blunders have made me laugh myself into one of the worst headaches I have had for years.”

He threw himself on the sofa, and in an instant she was by his side.

“Let me put my cool hands on your forehead,” she begged; “that used to do mamma good.”

He lay still, his face away from the light, and not speaking. Presently he fell asleep. Ruth put out the candles, and sat patiently by him for a long time, fancying he would awaken refreshed. The room grew cold in the night air; but Ruth dared not rouse him from what appeared to be sound, restoring slumber. She covered him with her shawl, which she had thrown over a chair on coming in from their twilight ramble. She had ample time to think; but she tried to banish thought. At last, his breathing became: quick and oppressed, and, after listening to it for some minutes with increasing affright, Ruth ventured to awaken him. He seemed stupefied and shivery. Ruth became more and more terrified; all the household were asleep except one servant-girl, who was wearied out of what little English she had knowledge of in more waking hours, and could only answer, “Iss, indeed, ma’am,” to any question put to her by Ruth.

She sat by the bedside all night long. He moaned and tossed, but never spoke sensibly. It was a new form of illness to the miserable Ruth. Her yesterday’s suffering went into the black distance of long-past years. The present was all in all. When she heard people stirring, she went in search of Mrs. Morgan, whose shrewd, sharp manners, unsoftened by inward respect for the poor girl, had awed Ruth even when Mr. Bellingham was by to protect her.

“Mrs. Morgan,” she said, sitting down in the little parlour appropriated to the landlady, for she felt her strength suddenly desert her–“Mrs. Morgan, I’m afraid Mr. Bellingham is very ill;”–here she burst into tears, but instantly checking herself, “Oh, what must I do?” continued she; “I don’t think he has known anything all through the night, and he looks so strange and wild this morning.”

She gazed up into Mrs. Morgan’s face, as if reading an oracle.

“Indeed, miss, ma’am, and it’s a very awkward thing. But don’t cry, that can do no good; ‘deed it can’t. I’ll go and see the poor young man myself, and then I can judge if a doctor is wanting.”

Ruth followed Mrs. Morgan upstairs. When they entered the sick-room Mr. Bellingham was sitting up in bed, looking wildly about him, and as he saw them, he exclaimed–

“Ruth! Ruth! come here; I won’t be left alone!” and then he fell down exhausted on the pillow. Mrs. Morgan went up and spoke to him, but he did not answer or take any notice.

“I’ll send for Mr. Jones, my dear, ‘deed and I will; we’ll have him here in a couple of hours, please God.”

“Oh, can’t he come sooner?” asked Ruth, wild with terror.

“‘Deed no! he lives at Llanglas when he’s at home, and that’s seven mile away, and he may be gone a round eight or nine mile on the other side Llanglas; but I’ll send a boy on the pony directly.”

Saying this, Mrs. Morgan left Ruth alone. There was nothing to be done, for Mr. Bellingham had again fallen into heavy sleep. Sounds of daily life began, bells rang, break-fast-services clattered up and down the passages, and Ruth sat on shivering by the bedside in that darkened room. Mrs. Morgan sent her breakfast upstairs by a chambermaid; but Ruth motioned it away in her sick agony, and the girl had no right to urge her to partake of it. That alone broke the monotony of the long morning. She heard the sound of merry parties setting out on excursions, on horseback or in carriages; and once, stiff and wearied, she stole to the window, and looked out on one side of the blind; but the day looked bright and discordant to her aching, anxious heart. The gloom of the darkened room was better and more befitting.

It was some hours after he was summoned before the doctor made his appearance. He questioned his patient, and, receiving no coherent answer, he asked Ruth concerning the symptoms; but when she questioned him in turn he only shook his head and looked grave. He made a sign to Mrs. Morgan to follow him out of the room, and they went down to her parlour, leaving Ruth in a depth of despair, lower than she could have thought it possible there remained for her to experience, an hour before.

“I am afraid this is a bad case,” said Mr. Jones to Mrs. Morgan in Welsh. “A brain-fever has evidently set in.”

“Poor young gentleman! poor young man! He looked the very picture of health!”

“That very appearance of robustness will, in all probability, make his disorder more violent. However, we must hope for the best, Mrs. Morgan. Who is to attend upon him? He will require careful nursing. Is that young lady his sister? She looks too young to be his wife?”

“No, indeed! Gentlemen like you must know, Mr. Jones, that we can’t always look too closely into the ways of young men who come to our houses. Not but what I am sorry for her, for she’s an innocent, inoffensive young creature. I always think it right, for my own morals, to put a little scorn into my manners when such as her come to stay here; but indeed, she’s so gentle, I’ve found it hard work to show the proper contempt.”

She would have gone on to her inattentive listener if she had not heard a low tap at the door, which recalled her from her morality, and Mr. Jones from his consideration of the necessary prescriptions.

“Come in!” said Mrs. Morgan sharply. And Ruth came in. She was white and trembling; but she stood in that dignity which strong feeling, kept down by self-command, always imparts.

“I wish you, sir, to be so kind as to tell me, clearly and distinctly, what I must do for Mr. Bellingham. Every direction you give me shall be most carefully attended to. You spoke about leeches–I can put them on, and see about them. Tell me everything, sir, that you wish to have done!”

Her manner was calm and serious, and her countenance and deportment showed that the occasion was calling out strength sufficient to meet it. Mr. Jones spoke with a deference which he had not thought of using upstairs, even while he supposed her to be the sister of the invalid. Ruth listened gravely; she repeated some of the injunctions, in order that she might be sure that she fully comprehended them, and then, bowing, left the room.

“She is no common person,” said Mr. Jones. “Still she is too young to have the responsibility of such a serious case. Have you any idea where his friends live, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Indeed and I have. His mother, as haughty a lady as you would wish to see, came travelling through Wales last year; she stopped here, and, I warrant you, nothing was good enough for her; she was real quality. She left some clothes and hooks behind her (for the maid was almost as fine as the mistress, and little thought of seeing after her lady’s clothes, having a taste for going to see scenery along with the man-servant), and we had several letters from her. I have them locked in the drawers in the bar, where I keep such things.”

“Well, I should recommend your writing to the lady, and telling her her son’s state.”

“It would be a favour, Mr. Jones, if you would just write it yourself. English writing comes so strange to my pen.”

The letter was written, and, in order to save time, Mr. Jones took it to the Llanglas post-office.

CHAPTER VII

THE CRISIS—WATCHING AND WAITING

Ruth put away every thought of the past or future; everything that could unfit her for the duties of the present. Exceeding love supplied the place of experience. She never left the room after the first day; she forced herself to eat, because his service needed her strength. She did not indulge in any tears, because the weeping she longed for would make her less able to attend upon him. She watched, and waited, and prayed; prayed with an utter forgetfulness of self, only with a consciousness that God was all-powerful, and that he, whom she loved so much, needed the aid of the Mighty One.

Day and night, the summer night, seemed merged into one. She lost count of time in the hushed and darkened room. One morning Mrs. Morgan beckoned her out; and she stole on tiptoe into the dazzling gallery, on one side of which the bedrooms opened.

“She’s come,” whispered Mrs. Morgan, looking very much excited, and forgetting that Ruth had never heard that Mrs. Bellingham had been summoned.

“Who is come?” asked Ruth. The idea of Mrs. Mason flashed through her mind–but with a more terrible, because a more vague, dread she heard that it was his mother; the mother of whom he had always spoken as a person whose opinion was to be regarded more than that of any other individual.

“What must I do? Will she be angry with me?” said she, relapsing into her child-like dependence on others; and feeling that even Mrs. Morgan was some one to stand between her and Mrs. Bellingham.

Mrs. Morgan herself was a little perplexed. Her morality was rather shocked at the idea of a proper real lady like Mrs. Bellingham discovering that she had winked at the connection between her son and Ruth. She was quite inclined to encourage Ruth in her inclination to shrink out of Mrs. Bellingham’s observation, an inclination which arose from no definite consciousness of having done wrong, but principally from the representations she had always heard of the lady’s awfulness. Mrs. Bellingham swept into her son’s room as if she were unconscious what poor young creature had lately haunted it; while Ruth hurried into some unoccupied bedroom, and, alone there, she felt her self-restraint suddenly give way, and burst into the saddest, most utterly wretched weeping she had ever known. She was worn out with watching, and exhausted by passionate crying, and she lay down on the bed and fell asleep. The day passed on; she slumbered unnoticed and unregarded; she awoke late in the evening with a sense of having done wrong in sleeping so long; the strain upon her responsibility had not yet left her. Twilight was closing fast around; she waited until it had become night, and then she stole down to Mrs. Morgan’s parlour.

“If you please, may I come in?” asked she.

Jenny Morgan was doing up the hieroglyphics which she called her accounts; she answered sharp enough, but it was a permission to enter, and Ruth was thankful for it.

“Will you tell me how he is? Do you think I may go back to him?”

“No, indeed, that you may not. Nest, who has made his room tidy these many days, is not fit to go in now. Mrs. Bellingham has brought her own maid, and the family nurse and Mr. Bellingham’s man; such a tribe of servants, and no end to packages; water-beds coming by the carrier, and a doctor from London coming down to-morrow, as if feather-beds and Mr. Jones was not good enough. Why, she won’t let a soul of us into the room; there’s no chance for you!”

Ruth sighed. “How is he?” she inquired, after a pause.

“How can I tell, indeed, when I am not allowed to go near him? Mr. Jones said to-night was a turning-point; but I doubt it, for it is four days since he was taken ill, and who ever heard of a sick person taking a turn on an even number of days? It’s alway on the third, or the fifth, or seventh, or so on. He’ll not turn till to-morrow night, take my word for it, and their fine London doctor will get all the credit, and honest Mr. Jones will be thrown aside. I don’t think he will get better myself, though–Gelert does not howl for nothing. My patience what’s the matter with the girl?–Lord, child, you’re never going to faint, and be ill on my hands?” Her sharp voice recalled Ruth from the sick unconsciousness that had been creeping over her as she listened to the latter part of this speech. She sat down and could not speak–the room whirled round and round–her white feebleness touched Mrs. Morgan’s heart.

“You’ve had no tea, I guess. Indeed, and the girls are very careless.” She rang the bell with energy, and seconded her pull by going to the door and shouting out sharp directions, in Welsh, to Nest and Gwen, and three or four other rough, kind, slatternly servants.

They brought her tea, which was comfortable, according to the idea of comfort prevalent in that rude hospitable place; there was plenty to eat; too much indeed, for it revolted the appetite it was intended to provoke. But the heartiness with which the kind rosy waiter pressed her to eat, and the scolding Mrs. Morgan gave her when she found the buttered toast untouched (toast on which she had herself desired that the butter might not be spared), did Ruth more good than the tea. She began to hope, and to long for the morning when hope might have become certainty. It was all in vain that she was told that the room she had been in all day was at her service; she did not say a word, but she was not going to bed that night of all nights in the year, when life or death hung trembling in the balance. She went into the bedroom till the bustling house was still, and heard busy feet passing to and fro into the room she might not enter; and voices, imperious, though hushed down to a whisper, ask for innumerable things. Then there was silence: and when she thought that all were dead asleep, except the watchers, she stole out into the gallery. On the other side were two windows, cut into the thick stone wall, and flower-pots were placed on the shelves thus formed, where great untrimmed, straggling geraniums grew, and strove to reach the light. The window near Mr. Bellingham’s door was open; the soft, warm-scented night-air came sighing in in faint gusts, and then was still. It was summer; there was no black darkness in the twenty-four hours; only the light grew dusky, and colour disappeared from objects, of which the shape and form remained distinct. A soft grey oblong of barred light fell on the flat wall opposite to the windows, and deeper grey shadows marked out the tracery of the plants, more graceful thus than in reality. Ruth crouched where no light fell. She sat on the ground close by the door; her whole existence was absorbed in listening: all was still; it was only her heart beating with the strong, heavy, regular sound of a hammer. She wished she could stop its rushing, incessant clang. She heard a rustle of a silken gown, and knew it ought not to have been worn in a sick-room; for her senses seemed to have passed into the keeping of the invalid, and to feel only as he felt. The noise was probably occasioned by some change of posture in the watcher inside, for it was once more dead-still. The soft wind outside sank with a low, long, distant moan among the windings of the hills, and lost itself there, and came no more again. But Ruth’s heart beat loud. She rose with as little noise as if she were a vision, and crept to the open window to try and lose the nervous listening for the ever-recurring sound. Out beyond, under the calm sky, veiled with a mist rather than with a cloud, rose the high, dark outlines of the mountains, shutting in that village as if it lay in a nest. They stood, like giants, solemnly watching for the end of Earth and Time. Here and there a black round shadow reminded Ruth of some “Cwm,” or hollow, where she and her lover had rambled in sun and in gladness. She then thought the land enchanted into everlasting brightness and happiness; she fancied, then, that into a region so lovely no bale or woe could enter, but would be charmed away and disappear before the sight of the glorious guardian mountains. Now she knew the truth, that earth has no barrier which avails against agony. It comes lightning-like down from heaven, into the mountain house and the town garret; into the palace and into the cottage. The garden lay close under the house; a bright spot enough by day; for in that soil, whatever was planted grew and blossomed in spite of neglect. The white roses glimmered out in the dusk all the night through; the red were lost in shadow. Between the low boundary of the garden and the hills swept one or two green meadows; Ruth looked into the grey darkness till she traced each separate wave of outline. Then she heard a little restless bird chirp out its wakefulness from a nest in the ivy round the walls of the house. But the mother-bird spread her soft feathers, and hushed it into silence. Presently, however, many little birds began to scent the coming dawn, and rustled among the leaves, and chirruped loud and clear. Just above the horizon, too, the mist became a silvery grey cloud hanging on the edge of the world; presently it turned shimmering white; and then, in an instant, it flushed into rose, and the mountain-tops sprang into heaven, and bathed in the presence of the shadow of God. With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red came above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the flower-buds to the life of another day. Ruth gave a sigh of relief that the night was over and gone; for she knew that soon suspense would be ended, and the verdict known, whether for life or for death. She grew faint and sick with anxiety; it almost seemed as if she must go into the room and learn the truth. Then she heard movements, but they were not sharp nor rapid, as if prompted by any emergency; then, again, it was still. She sat curled up upon the floor, with her head thrown back against the wall, and her hands clasped round her knees. She had yet to wait. Meanwhile, the invalid was slowly rousing himself from a long, deep, sound, health-giving sleep. His mother had sat by him the night through, and was now daring to change her position for the first time; she was even venturing to give directions in a low voice to the old nurse, who had dozed away in an arm-chair, ready to obey any summons of her mistress. Mrs. Bellingham went on tiptoe towards the door, and chiding herself because her stiff, weary limbs made some slight noise. She had an irrepressible longing for a few minutes’ change of scene after her night of watching. She felt that the crisis was over; and the relief to her mind made her conscious of every bodily feeling and irritation, which had passed unheeded as long as she had been in suspense.

She slowly opened the door. Ruth sprang upright at the first sound of the creaking handle. Her very lips were stiff and unpliable with the force of the blood which rushed to her head. It seemed as if she could not form words. She stood right before Mrs. Bellingham. “How is he, madam?”

Mrs. Bellingham was for a moment surprised at the white apparition which seemed to rise out of the ground. But her quick, proud mind understood it all in an instant. This was the girl, then, whose profligacy had led her son astray; had raised up barriers in the way of her favourite scheme of his marriage with Miss Duncombe; nay, this was the real cause of his illness, his mortal danger at this present time, and of her bitter, keen anxiety. If, under any circumstances, Mrs. Bellingham could have been guilty of the ill-breeding of not answering a question, it was now; and for a moment she was tempted to pass on in silence. Ruth could not wait; she spoke again–

“For the love of God, madam, speak! How is he? Will he live?” If she did not answer her, she thought the creature was desperate enough to force her way into his room. So she spoke–

“He has slept well: he is better.”

“Oh! my God, I thank thee,” murmured Ruth, sinking back against the wall. It was too much to hear this wretched girl thanking God for her son’s life; as if, in fact, she had any lot or part in him. And to dare to speak to the Almighty on her son’s behalf! Mrs. Bellingham looked at her with cold, contemptuous eyes, whose glances were like ice-bolts, and made Ruth shiver up away from them.

“Young woman, if you have any propriety or decency left, I trust that you will not dare to force yourself into his room.”

She stood for a moment as if awaiting an answer, and half expecting it to be a defiance. But she did not understand Ruth. She did not imagine the faithful trustfulness of her heart. Ruth believed that, if Mr. Bellingham was alive and likely to live, all was well. When he wanted her, he would send for her, ask for her, yearn for her, till every one would yield before his steadfast will. At present she imagined that he was probably too weak to care or know who was about him; and though it would have been an infinite delight to her to hover and brood around him, yet it was of him she thought and not of herself. She gently drew herself on one side to make way for Mrs. Bellingham to pass.

By and by Mrs. Morgan came up. Ruth was still near the door, from which it seemed as if she could not tear herself away.

“Indeed, miss, and you must not hang about the door in this way; it is not pretty manners. Mrs. Bellingham has been speaking very sharp and cross about it, and I shall lose the character of my inn if people take to talking as she does. Did I not give you a room last night to keep in, and never be seen or heard of; and did I not tell you what a particular lady Mrs. Bellingham was, but you must come out here right in her way? Indeed, it was not pretty, nor grateful to me, Jenny Morgan, and that I must say.”

Ruth turned away like a chidden child. Mrs. Morgan followed her to her room, scolding as she went; and then, having cleared her heart after her wont by uttering hasty words, her real kindness made her add, in a softened tone–

“You stop up here like a good girl. I’ll send you your breakfast by-and-by, and let you know from time to time how he is; and you can go out for a walk, you know: but if you do, I’ll take it as a favour if you’ll go out by the side-door. It will, maybe, save scandal.”

All that day long, Ruth kept herself close prisoner in the room to which Mrs. Morgan accorded her; all that day, and many succeeding days. But at nights, when the house was still, and even the little brown mice had gathered up the crumbs, and darted again to their holes, Ruth stole out, and crept to his door to catch, if she could, the sound of his beloved voice. She could tell by its tones how he felt, and how he was getting on, as well as any of the watchers in the room. She yearned and pined to see him once more; but she had reasoned herself down into something like patience. When he was well enough to leave his room, when he had not always one of the nurses with him, then he would send for her, and she would tell him how very patient she had been for his dear sake. But it was long to wait, even with this thought of the manner in which the waiting would end. Poor Ruth! her faith was only building up vain castles in the air; they towered up into heaven, it is true; but, after all, they were but visions.

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. BELLINGHAM “DOES THE THING HANDSOMELY”

If Mr. Bellingham did not get rapidly well, it was more owing to the morbid querulous fancy attendant on great weakness than from any unfavourable medical symptom. But he turned away with peevish loathing from the very sight of food, prepared in the slovenly manner which had almost disgusted him when he was well. It was of no use telling him that Simpson, his mother’s maid, had superintended the preparation at every point. He offended her by detecting something offensive and to be avoided in her daintiest messes, and made Mrs. Morgan mutter many a hasty speech, which, however, Mrs. Bellingham thought it better not to hear until her son should be strong enough to travel.

“I think you are better to-day,” said she, as his man wheeled his sofa to the bedroom window. “We shall get you downstairs to-morrow.”

“If you were to get away from this abominable place, I could go down to-day; but I believe I’m to be kept prisoner here for ever. I shall never get well here, I’m sure.”

He sank back on his sofa in impatient despair. The surgeon was announced, and eagerly questioned by Mrs. Bellingham as to the possibility of her son’s removal; and he, having heard the same anxiety for the same end expressed by Mrs. Morgan in the regions below, threw no great obstacles in the way. After the doctor had taken his departure, Mrs. Bellingham cleared her throat several times. Mr. Bellingham knew the prelude of old, and winced with nervous annoyance.

“Henry, there is something I must speak to you about; an unpleasant subject, certainly, but one which has been forced upon me by the very girl herself; you must be aware to what I refer without giving me the pain of explaining myself.” Mr. Bellingham turned himself sharply round to the wall, and prepared himself for a lecture by concealing his face from her notice; but she herself was in too nervous a state to be capable of observation.

“Of course,” she continued, “it was my wish to be as blind to the whole affair as possible, though you can’t imagine how Mrs. Mason has blazoned it abroad; all Fordham rings with it but of course it could not be pleasant, or, indeed, I may say correct, for me to be aware that a person of such improper character was under the same–I beg your pardon, dear Henry, what do you say?”

“Ruth is no improper character, mother; you do her injustice!”

“My dear boy, you don’t mean to uphold her as a paragon of virtue!”

“No, mother, but I led her wrong; I—-“

“We will let all discussions into the cause or duration of her present character drop, if you please,” said Mrs. Bellingham, with the sort of dignified authority which retained a certain power over her son–a power which originated in childhood, and which he only defied when he was roused into passion. He was too weak in body to oppose himself to her, and fight the ground inch by inch. “As I have implied, I do not wish to ascertain your share of blame; from what I saw of her one morning, I am convinced of her forward, intrusive manners, utterly without shame, or even common modesty.”

“What are you referring to?” asked Mr. Bellingham sharply.

“Why, when you were at the worst, and I had been watching you all night, and had just gone out in the morning for a breath of fresh air, this girl pushed herself before me, and insisted upon speaking to me. I really had to send Mrs. Morgan to her before I could return to your room. A more impudent, hardened manner, I never saw.”

“Ruth was neither impudent nor hardened; she was ignorant enough, and might offend from knowing no better.”

He was getting weary of the discussion, and wished it had never been begun. From the time he had become conscious of his mother’s presence he had felt the dilemma he was in, in regard to Ruth, and various plans had directly crossed his brain; but it had been so troublesome to weigh and consider them all properly, that they had been put aside to be settled when he grew stronger. But this difficulty in which he was placed by his connection with Ruth, associated the idea of her in his mind with annoyance and angry regret at the whole affair. He wished, in the languid way in which he wished and felt everything not immediately relating to his daily comfort, that he had never seen her. It was a most awkward, a most unfortunate affair. Notwithstanding this annoyance connected with and arising out of Ruth, he would not submit to hear her abused; and something in his manner impressed this on his mother, for she immediately changed her mode of attack.

“We may as well drop all dispute as to the young woman’s manners; but I suppose you do not mean to defend your connection with her; I suppose you are not so lost to all sense of propriety as to imagine it fit or desirable that your mother and this degraded girl should remain under the same roof, liable to meet at any hour of the day?” She waited for an answer, but no answer came.

“I ask you a simple question; is it, or is it not, desirable?”

“I suppose it is not,” he replied gloomily.

“And I suppose, from your manner, that you think the difficulty would be best solved by my taking my departure, and leaving you with your vicious companion?” Again no answer, but inward and increasing annoyance, of which Mr. Bellingham considered Ruth the cause. At length he spoke–

“Mother, you are not helping me in my difficulty. I have no desire to banish you, nor to hurt you, after all your care for me. Ruth has not been so much to blame as you imagine, that I must say; but I do not wish to see her again, if you can tell me how to arrange it otherwise, without behaving unhandsomely. Only spare me all this worry a while, I am so weak. I put myself in your hands. Dismiss her, as you wish it; but let it be done handsomely, and let me hear no more about it; I cannot bear it; let me have a quiet life, without being lectured, while I am pent up here, and unable to shake off unpleasant thoughts.”

“My dear Henry, rely upon me.”

“No more, mother; it’s a bad business, and I can hardly avoid blaming myself in the matter. I don’t want to dwell upon it.”

“Don’t be too severe in your self-reproaches while you are so feeble, dear Henry; it is right to repent, but I have no doubt in my own mind she led you wrong with her artifices. But, as you say, everything should be done handsomely. I confess I was deeply grieved when I first heard of the affair, but since I have seen the girl—-Well! I’ll say no more about her, since I see it displeases you; but I am thankful to God that you see the error of your ways. She sat silent, thinking for a little while, and then sent for her writing-case and began to write. Her son became restless, and nervously irritated.

“Mother,” he said, “this affair worries me to death. I cannot shake off the thoughts of it.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll arrange it satisfactorily.”

“Could we not leave to-night? I should not be so haunted by this annoyance in another place. I dread seeing her again, because I fear a scene; and yet I believe I ought to see her in order to explain.”

“You must not think of such a thing, Henry,” said she, alarmed at the very idea.

“Sooner than that, we will leave in half-an-hour, and try to get to Pen tre Voelas to-night. It is not yet three, and the evenings are very long. Simpson should stay and finish the packing; she could go straight to London and meet us there. Macdonald and nurse could go with us. Could you bear twenty miles, do you think?”

Anything to get rid of his uneasiness. He felt that he was not behaving as he should do to Ruth, though the really right never entered his head. But it would extricate him from his present dilemma, and save him many lectures; he knew that his mother, always liberal where money was concerned, would “do the thing handsomely”; and it would always be easy to write and give Ruth what explanation he felt inclined, in a day or two; so he consented, and soon lost some of his uneasiness in watching the bustle of the preparation for their departure. All this time Ruth was quietly spending in her room, beguiling the waiting, weary hours, with pictures of the meeting at the end. Her room looked to the back, and was in a side-wing away from the principal state apartments, consequently she was not roused to suspicion by any of the commotion; but, indeed, if she had heard the banging of doors, the sharp directions, the carriage-wheels, she would still not have suspected the truth; her own love was too faithful.

It was four o’clock and past, when some one knocked at her door, and, on entering, gave her a note, which Mrs. Bellingham had left. That lady had found some difficulty in wording it so as to satisfy herself, but it was as follows:–

“My son, on recovering from his illness, is, I thank God, happily conscious of the sinful way in which he has been living with you. By his earnest desire, and in order to avoid seeing you again, we are on the point of leaving this place; but, before I go, I wish to exhort you to repentance, and to remind you that you will not have your own guilt alone upon your head, but that of any young man whom you may succeed in entrapping into vice. I shall pray that you may turn to an honest life, and I strongly recommend you, if indeed you are not ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’ to enter some penitentiary. In accordance with my son’s wishes, I forward you in this envelope a bank-note of fifty pounds.

“MARGARET BELLINGHAM.”

Was this the end of all? Had he, indeed, gone? She started up, and asked this last question of the servant, who, half guessing at the purport of the note, had lingered about the room, curious to see the effect produced.

“Iss, indeed, miss; the carriage drove from the door as I came upstairs. You’ll see it now on the Yspytty road, if you’ll please to come to the window of No. 24.”

Ruth started up and followed the chambermaid. Ay, there it was, slowly winding up the steep, white road, on which it seemed to move at a snail’s pace.

She might overtake him–she might–she might speak one farewell word to him, print his face on her heart with a last look–nay, when he saw her he might retract, and not utterly, for ever, leave her. Thus she thought; and she flew back to her room, and snatching up her bonnet, ran, tying the strings with her trembling hands as she went down the stairs, out at the nearest door, little heeding the angry words of Mrs. Morgan; for the hostess, more irritated at Mrs. Bellingham’s severe upbraiding at parting, than mollified by her ample payment, was offended by the circumstance of Ruth, in her wild haste, passing through the prohibited front door.

But Ruth was away before Mrs. Morgan had finished her speech, out and away, scudding along the road, thought-lost in the breathless rapidity of her motion. Though her heart and head beat almost to bursting, what did it signify if she could but overtake the carriage? It was a nightmare, constantly evading the most passionate wishes and endeavours, and constantly gaining ground. Every time it was visible it was in fact more distant, but Ruth would not believe it. If she could but gain the summit of that weary everlasting hill, she believed that she could run again, and would soon be nigh upon the carriage. As she ran she prayed with wild eagerness; she prayed that she might see his face once more, even if she died on the spot before him. It was one of those prayers which God is too merciful to grant; but, despairing and wild as it was, Ruth put her soul into it, and prayed it again, and yet again.

Wave above wave of the ever-rising hills were gained, were crossed, and at last Ruth struggled up to the very top and stood on the bare table of moor, brown and purple, stretching far away till it was lost in the haze of the summer afternoon; the white road was all flat before her, but the carriage she sought, and the figure she sought, had disappeared. There was no human being there; a few wild, black-faced mountain sheep, quietly grazing near the road as if it were long since they had been disturbed, by the passing of any vehicle, was all the life she saw on the bleak moorland.

She threw herself down on the ling by the side of the road, in despair. Her only hope was to die, and she believed she was dying. She could not think; she could believe anything. Surely life was a horrible dream, and God would mercifully awaken her from it? She had no penitence, no consciousness of error or offence no knowledge of any one circumstance but that he was gone. Yet afterwards–long afterwards–she remembered the exact motion of a bright green beetle busily meandering among the wild thyme near her, and she recalled the musical, balanced, wavering drop of a skylark into her nest, near the heather-bed where she lay. The sun was sinking low, the hot air had ceased to quiver near the hotter earth, when she bethought her once more of the note which she had impatiently thrown down before half mastering its contents. “Oh, perhaps,” she thought, “I have been too hasty. There may be some words of explanation from him on the other side of the page, to which, in my blind anguish, I never turned. I will go and find it.”

She lifted herself heavily and stiffly from the crushed heather. She stood dizzy and confused with her change of posture; and was so unable to move at first, that her walk was but slow and tottering; but, by-and-by, she was tasked and goaded by thoughts which forced her into rapid motion, as if, by it, she could escape from her agony. She came down on the level ground, just as many gay or peaceful groups were sauntering leisurely home with hearts at ease; with low laughs and quiet smiles, and many an exclamation at the beauty of the summer evening.

Ever since her adventure with the little boy and his sister, Ruth had habitually avoided encountering these happy–innocents, may I call them?–these happy fellow-mortals! And even now, the habit grounded on sorrowful humiliation had power over her; she paused, and then, on looking back, she saw more people who had come into the main road from a side-path. She opened a gate into a pasture-field, and crept up to the hedge-bank until all should have passed by, and she could steal into the inn unseen. She sat down on the sloping turf by the roots of an old hawthorn tree which grew in the hedge; she was still tearless, with hot burning eyes; she heard the merry walkers pass by; she heard the footsteps of the village children as they ran along to their evening play; she saw the small black cows come into the fields after being milked; and life seemed yet abroad. When would the world be still and dark, and fit for such a deserted, desolate creature as she was? Even in her hiding-place she was not long at peace. The little children, with their curious eyes peering here and there, had peeped through the hedge, and through the gate, and now they gathered from all the four corners of the hamlet, and crowded round the gate; and one more adventurous than the rest had run into the field to cry, “Gi’ me a halfpenny,” which set the example to every little one, emulous of his boldness; and there, where she sat, low on the ground, and longing for the sure hiding-place earth gives to the weary, the children kept running in, and pushing one another forwards and laughing. Poor things! their time had not come for understanding what sorrow is. Ruth would have begged them to leave her alone, and not madden her utterly; but they knew no English save the one eternal “Gi’ me a halfpenny.” She felt in her heart that there was no pity anywhere. Suddenly, while she thus doubted God, a shadow fell across her garments, on which her miserable eyes were bent. She looked up. The deformed gentleman she had twice before seen stood there. He had been attracted by the noisy little crowd, and had questioned them in Welsh; but, not understanding enough of the language to comprehend their answers, he had obeyed their signs, and entered the gate to which they pointed. There he saw the young girl whom he had noticed at first for her innocent beauty, and the second time for the idea he had gained respecting her situation; there he saw her, crouched up like some hunted creature, with a wild, scared look of despair, which almost made her lovely face seem fierce; he saw her dress soiled and dim, her bonnet crushed and battered with her tossings to and fro on the moorland bed; he saw the poor, lost wanderer, and when he saw her he had compassion on her.

There was some look of heavenly pity In his eyes, as gravely and sadly they met her upturned gaze, which touched her stony heart. Still looking at him, as if drawing some good influence from him, she said low and mournfully, “He has left me, sir!–sir, he has indeed!–he has gone and left me!”

Before he could speak a word to comfort her, she had burst into the wildest, dreariest crying ever mortal cried. The settled form of the event, when put into words, went sharp to her heart; her moans and sobs wrung his soul; but, as no speech of his could be heard, if he had been able to decide what best to say, he stood by her in apparent calmness, while she, wretched, wailed and uttered her woe. But when she lay worn out, and stupefied into silence, she heard him say to himself in a low voice–

“Oh, my God! for Christ’s sake, pity her!”

Ruth lifted up her eyes, and looked at him with a dim perception of the meaning of his words. She regarded him fixedly in a dreamy way, as if they struck some chord in her heart, and she were listening to its echo; and so it was. His pitiful look, or his words, reminded her of the childish days when she knelt at her mother’s knee; and she was only conscious of a straining, longing desire to recall it all.

He let her take her time, partly because he was powerfully affected himself by all the circumstances, and by the sad pale face upturned to his; and partly by an instinctive consciousness that the softest patience was required. But suddenly she startled him, as she herself was startled into a keen sense of the suffering agony of the present; she sprang up and pushed him aside, and went rapidly towards the gate of the field. He could not move as quickly as most men, but he put forth his utmost speed. He followed across the road, on to the rocky common; but, as he went along, with his uncertain gait, in the dusk gloaming, he stumbled, and fell over some sharp projecting stone. The acute pain which shot up his back forced a short cry from him; and, when bird and beast are hushed into rest and the stillness of night is over all, a high-pitched sound, like the voice of pain, is carried far in the quiet air. Ruth, speeding on in her despair, heard the sharp utterance, and stopped suddenly short. It did what no remonstrance could have done; it called her out of herself. The tender nature was in her still, in that hour when all good angels seemed to have abandoned her. In the old days she could never bear to hear or see bodily suffering in any of God’s meanest creatures, without trying to succour them; and now, in her rush to the awful death of the suicide, she stayed her wild steps, and turned to find from whom that sharp sound of anguish had issued.

He lay among the white stones, too faint with pain to move, but with an agony in his mind far keener than any bodily pain, as he thought that by his unfortunate fall he had lost all chance of saving her. He was almost over-powered by his intense thankfulness when he saw her white figure pause, and stand listening, and turn again with slow footsteps, as if searching for some lost thing. He could hardly speak, but he made a sound which, though his heart was inexpressibly glad, was like a groan. She came quickly towards him.

“I am hurt,” said he; “do not leave me;” his disabled and tender frame was overcome by the accident and the previous emotions, and he fainted away. Ruth flew to the little mountain stream, the dashing sound of whose waters had been tempting her, but a moment before, to seek forgetfulness in the deep pool into which they fell. She made a basin of her joined hands, and carried enough of the cold fresh water back to dash into his face and restore him to consciousness. While he still kept silence, uncertain what to say best fitted to induce her to listen to him, she said softly–

“Are you better, sir?–are you very much hurt?”

“Not very much; I am better. Any quick movement is apt to cause me a sudden loss of power in my back, and I believe I stumbled over some of these projecting stones. It will soon go off; and you will help me to go home, I am sure.”

“Oh, yes! Can you go now? I am afraid of your lying too long on this heather; there is a heavy dew.”

He was so anxious to comply with her wish, and not weary out her thought for him, and so turn her back upon herself, that he tried to rise. The pain was acute, and this she saw.

“Don’t hurry yourself, sir; I can wait.”

Then came across her mind the recollection of the business that was thus deferred; but the few homely words which had been exchanged between them seemed to have awakened her from her madness. She sat down by him, and covering her face with her hands, cried mournfully and unceasingly. She forgot his presence, and yet she had a consciousness that some one looked for her kind offices, that she was wanted in the world, and must not rush hastily out of it. The consciousness did not ‘take this definite form, it did not become a thought, but it kept her still, and it was gradually soothing her.

“Can you help me to rise now?” said he, after a while. She did not speak, but she helped him up, and then he took her arm, and she led him tenderly through all the little velvet paths, where the turf grew short and soft between the rugged stones. Once more on the highway, they slowly passed along in the moonlight. He guided her by a slight motion of the arm, through the more unfrequented lanes, to his lodgings at the shop; for he thought for her, and conceived the pain she would have in seeing the lighted windows of the inn. He leant more heavily on her arm, as they awaited the opening of the door.

“Come in,” said he, not relaxing his hold, and yet dreading to tighten it, lest she should defy restraint, and once more rush away.

They went slowly into the little parlour behind the shop. The bonny-looking hostess, Mrs. Hughes by name, made haste to light the candle, and then they saw each other, face to face. The deformed gentleman looked very pale, but Ruth looked as if the shadow of death was upon her.

CHAPTER IX

THE STORM-SPIRIT SUBDUED

Mrs. Hughes bustled about with many a sympathetic exclamation, now in pretty broken English, now in more fluent Welsh, which sounded as soft as Russian or Italian, in her musical voice. Mr. Benson, for that was the name of the hunchback, lay on the sofa thinking; while the tender Mrs. Hughes made every arrangement for his relief from pain. He had lodged with her for three successive years, and she knew and loved him.

Ruth stood in the little bow-window, looking out. Across the moon, and over the deep blue heavens, large, torn, irregular-shaped clouds went hurrying, as if summoned by some storm-spirit. The work they were commanded to do was not here; the mighty gathering-place lay eastward, immeasurable leagues; and on they went, chasing each other over the silent earth, now black, now silver-white at one transparent edge, now with the moon shining like Hope through their darkest centre, now again with a silver lining; and now, utterly black, they sailed lower in the lift, and disappeared behind the immovable mountains; they were rushing in the very direction in which Ruth had striven and struggled to go that afternoon; they, in their wild career, would soon pass over the very spot where he (her world’s he) was lying sleeping, or perhaps not sleeping, perhaps thinking of her. The storm was in her mind, and rent and tore her purposes into forms as wild and irregular as the heavenly shapes she was looking at. If, like them, she could pass the barrier horizon in the night, she might overtake him. Mr. Benson saw her look, and read it partially. He saw her longing gaze outwards upon the free, broad world, and thought that the siren waters, whose deadly music yet rang in his ears, were again tempting her. He called her to him praying that his feeble voice might have power.

“My dear young lady, I have much to say to you; and God has taken my strength from me now when I most need–Oh, I sin to speak so–but, for His sake, I implore you to be patient here, if only till to-morrow morning.” He looked at her, but her face was immovable, and she did not speak. She could not give up her hope, her chance, her liberty, till to-morrow.

“God help me,” said he mournfully, “my words do not touch her;” and, still holding her hand, he sank back on the pillows. Indeed, it was true that his words did not vibrate in her atmosphere. The storm-spirit raged there, and filled her heart with the thought that she was an outcast; and the holy words, “for His sake,” were answered by the demon, who held possession, with a blasphemous defiance of the merciful God–

“What have I to do with Thee?”

He thought of every softening influence of religion which over his own disciplined heart had power, but put them aside as useless. Then the still small voice whispered, and he spake–

“In your mother’s name, whether she be dead or alive, I command you to stay here until I am able to speak to you.”

She knelt down at the foot of the sofa, and shook it with her sobs. Her heart was touched, and he hardly dared to speak again. At length he said–

“I know you will not go–you could not–for her sake. You will not, will you?”

“No,” whispered Ruth; and then there was a great blank in her heart. She had given up her chance. She was calm, in the utter absence of all hope.

“And now you will do what I tell you?” said he gently, but unconsciously to himself, in the tone of one who has found the hidden spell by which to rule spirits.

She slowly said, “Yes.” But she was subdued.

He called Mrs. Hughes. She came from her adjoining shop.

“You have a bedroom within yours, where your daughter used to sleep, I think? I am sure you will oblige me, and I shall consider it as a great favour, if you will allow this young lady to sleep there to-night. Will you take her there now? Go, my dear. I have full trust in your promise not to leave until I can speak to you.” His voice died away to silence; but as Ruth rose from her knees at his bidding, she looked at his face through her tears. His lips were moving in earnest, unspoken prayer, and she knew it was for her.

That night, although his pain was relieved by rest, he could not sleep; and, as in fever, the coming events kept unrolling themselves before him in every changing and fantastic form. He met Ruth in all possible places and ways, and addressed her in every manner he could imagine most calculated to move and affect her to penitence and virtue. Towards morning he fell asleep, but the same thoughts haunted his dreams; he spoke, but his voice refused to utter aloud; and she fled, relentless, to the deep, black pool.

But God works in His own way.

The visions melted into deep, unconscious sleep. He was awakened by a knock at the door, which seemed a repetition of what he had heard in his last sleeping moments.

It was Mrs. Hughes. She stood at the first word of permission within the room.

“Please, sir, I think the young lady is very ill indeed, sir; perhaps you would please to come to her.”

“How is she ill?” said he, much alarmed.

“Quite quiet-like, sir; but I think she is dying, that’s all, indeed, sir.”

“Go away, I will be with you directly,” he replied, his heart sinking within him.

In a very short time he was standing with Mrs. Hughes by Ruth’s bedside. She lay as still as if she were dead, her eyes shut, her wan face numbed into a fixed anguish of expression. She did not speak when they spoke, though after a while they thought she strove to do so. But all power of motion and utterance had left her. She was dressed in everything, except her bonnet, as she had been the day before; although sweet, thoughtful Mrs. Hughes had provided her with nightgear, which lay on the little chest of drawers that served as a dressing-table. Mr. Benson lifted up her arm to feel her feeble, fluttering pulse; and when he let go her hand, it fell upon the bed in a dull, heavy way, as if she were already dead.

“You gave her some food?” said he anxiously, to Mrs. Hughes.

“Indeed, and I offered her the best in the house, but she shook her poor pretty head, and only asked if I would please to get her a cup of water. I brought her some milk though; and, ‘deed, I think she’d rather have had the water; but, not to seem sour and cross, she took some milk.” By this time Mrs. Hughes was fairly crying.

“When does the doctor come up here?”

“Indeed, sir, and he’s up nearly every day now, the inn is so full.”

“I’ll go for him. And can you manage to undress her and lay her in bed? Open the window too, and let in the air; if her feet are cold, put bottles of hot water to them.”

It was a proof of the true love, which was the nature of both, that it never crossed their minds to regret that this poor young creature had been thus thrown upon their hands. On the contrary, Mrs. Hughes called it “a blessing.”

“It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”

CHAPTER X

A NOTE AND THE ANSWER

At the inn everything was life and bustle. Mr. Benson had to wait long in Mrs. Morgan’s little parlour before she could come to him, and he kept growing more and more impatient. At last she made her appearance and heard his story. People may talk as they will about the little respect that is paid to virtue, unaccompanied by the outward accidents of wealth or station; but I rather think it will be found that, in the long run, true and simple virtue always has its proportionate reward in the respect and reverence of every one whose esteem is worth having. To be sure, it is not rewarded after the way of the world, as mere worldly possessions are, with low obeisance and lip-service; but all the better and more noble qualities in the hearts of others make ready and go forth to meet it on its approach, provided only it be pure, simple, and unconscious of its own existence.

Mr. Benson had little thought for outward tokens of respect just then, nor had Mrs. Morgan much time to spare; but she smoothed her ruffled brow, and calmed her bustling manner, as soon as ever she saw who it was that awaited her; for Mr. Benson was well known in the village, where he had taken up his summer holiday among the mountains year after year, always a resident at the shop, and seldom spending a shilling at the inn.

Mrs. Morgan listened patiently–for her.

“Mr. Jones will come this afternoon. But it is a shame you should be troubled with such as her. I had but little time yesterday, but I guessed there was something wrong, and Gwen has just been telling me her bed has not been slept in. They were in a pretty hurry to be gone yesterday, for all that the gentleman was not fit to travel, to my way of thinking; indeed, William Wynn, the post-boy, said he was weary enough before he got to the end of that Yspytty road; and he thought they would have to rest there a day or two before they could go further than Pen tre Voelas. Indeed, and anyhow, the servant is to follow them with the baggage this very morning; and now I remember, William Wynn said they would wait for her. You’d better write a note, Mr. Benson, and tell them her state.”

It was sound, though unpalatable advice. It came from one accustomed to bring excellent, if unrefined sense, to bear quickly upon any emergency, and to decide rapidly. She was, in truth, so little accustomed to have her authority questioned, that, before Mr. Benson had made up his mind, she had produced paper, pens, and ink from the drawer in her bureau, placed them before him, and was going to leave the room.

“Leave the note on this shelf, and trust me that it goes by the maid. The boy that drives her there in the car shall bring you an answer back.” She was gone before he could rally his scattered senses enough to remember that he had not the least idea of the name of the person to whom he was to write. The quiet leisure and peace of his little study at home favoured his habit of reverie and long deliberation, just as her position as mistress of an inn obliged her to quick, decisive ways.

Her advice, though good in some points, was unpalatable in others. It was true that Ruth’s condition ought to be known by those who were her friends; but were these people to whom he was now going to write friends? He knew there was a rich mother, and a handsome, elegant son; and he had also some idea of the circumstances which might a little extenuate their mode of quitting Ruth. He had wide-enough sympathy to understand that it must have been a most painful position in which the mother had been placed, on finding herself under the same roof with a girl who was living with her son, as Ruth was. And yet he did not like to apply to her; to write to the son was still more out of the question, as it seemed like asking him to return. But through one or the other lay the only clue to her friends, who certainly ought to be made acquainted with her position. At length he wrote–

“MADAM,–I write to tell you of the condition of the poor young woman”–(here came a long pause of deliberation)–“who accompanied your son on his arrival here, and who was left behind on your departure yesterday. She is lying (as it appears to me) in a very dangerous state at my lodgings; and, if I may suggest, it would be kind to allow your maid to return and attend upon her