NIGHT ON THE BALCONY.
"I must see him. I will see him. No one will tell me the truth but
himself. I must know it or die!"
Ruth stood alone under the shadow of the trees, white as a ghost, and
rendered desperate by words that had smitten her into insensibility.
How long she had lain in that forest path the girl scarcely knew. When
she came to herself, it was with a shudder of dread, lest that evil
face should be looking down upon her; but all was silent. The birds
were singing close by her, and there was a soft rustle of leaves,
nothing more. She lifted her head, and with her hands searched for
marks of the blow that seemed to have levelled her to the earth. A
blow! She remembered now it was a word that she had sunk under--a
coarse, cruel word, that brought a horrid picture with it, from which
every nerve in her body recoiled.
She was very feeble, now, and could scarcely walk. It seemed as if she
never would get to the house; the distance appeared interminable. She
could not keep in the narrow paths that coiled along the flower-beds,
but wavered in her steps from weakness, as her enemy had done from
wrath, until her feet were tangled in the creeping flowers and
strawberry-vines.
Her father was lying with his eyes closed when she went in, and a
smile was upon his mouth. Even in his feeble state, he had found
strength to free his child from a hateful alliance, and the thought
made him happy. Ruth stooped down, and kissed him with her cold lips.
The touch startled him. He opened his eyes, and saw how wan and
tremulous she was.
"Do not fret!" he said, tenderly. "Why should you, darling? I have
sent him away. I have told him that the child God gave to me shall
never be his!"
At another time this news would have thrilled the girl with
unutterable joy; but she scarcely felt it now. The fear that a
marriage with Storms might be urged upon her seemed a small trouble,
while the awful possibility he had fastened on her fears was so vivid
and so strong.
"I thought it would please you," said the sick man, disappointed. "I
did."
"And so it does, father; but we will not talk of it now. His coming
has tired you, and I--I, too, am wanting a little rest. If you do not
care, I will go away, while you sleep, and stay in my own room."
"There is wine on the table. Drink a little. I suppose it may be
shadows from the ivy, but you look pale, Ruth."
"Yes, it is the shadows, but I will drink some wine."
She poured some wine into a glass, and drank it thirstily; but it
brought no color into her cheeks, and none came there until she stood
in the porch, after night-fall, and repeated to herself, "I must see
him! I will see him! I must know the truth, or die!"
This resolve had made her stronger; perhaps the wine had helped, for
she was not used to it, and so the effect was all the more powerful.
At any rate, she drew the hood over her face, wrapped a dark mantle
about her, and went out across the garden, into the path of the
wilderness, and on to the home of which she might some day, God
willing, become the mistress. When she thought of this, the shadow of
that other picture, which had taken away so much of her life in the
path she had trod only a few hours before, came with it, and that
which had been to her a proud hope was blotted out.
"I will believe it from no lips but his," she thought, looking out
from the shadows at the vast gray building that held her heart in its
chambers. "Oh, that I knew what was in my father's letter!"
She left the shelter of the park, and walked cautiously across the
lawn, concealing her progress as best she could among flowering
thickets, or a great tree that spread its branches here and there in
forest grandeur.
She entered the flower-thickets under that window, the only one she
cared for in all that vast building. A faint light came through it,
softened by falls of lace, tinted red by the glow of silken curtains,
and broken into gleams by the ivy leaves outside. Her heart gave a
wild leap as she saw that the shutters were unclosed; then a great
fear seized upon her; some person might be within the chamber, or
lingering in the grounds. Cautiously, and holding her breath, she
crept toward the masses of ivy that wound its thick foliage up to the
balcony. If it stirred in the wind she shrunk back terrified. Where it
cast deep shadows downward, she fancied that some man was crouching.
Still the girl crept forward, her anxiety half lost in womanly dread
of being misunderstood, even by the beloved being she sought. But, for
the great agony of doubt at her heart, she would have turned even
then, so strong was the delicacy of her pride.
She was under the balcony now, behind the ivy, which covered her like
a mantle. Up the narrow steps she crept, and crouching by the window,
looked in. No one was moving. A night-lamp shed its soft moonlight on
a marble console, on which some wine and fruit cast shadows. In the
middle of the room stood the couch she had seen but once, shaded with
rich silk and clouds of lace, snow-white and filmy, seeming to cool
the air, it was so frost-like. These curtains were flung back at the
pillows, and there she saw her husband in a sound sleep. She held her
breath, she laid her face close to the window. Then, with impotent
fingers, tried the sash. It was fastened on the inside.
What could she do? How arouse the sleeper? Impatiently she beat her
hand on the glass. Still more recklessly she called her husband's
name.
"Walton! Walton!"