PLEADING FOR DELAY.
Had her sin killed that good old man? Was the penalty of what seemed
but an evasion, death--death to the being she loved better than any
other on earth save one, that one suffering also from her fault? Had
she, in her fond selfishness, turned that pretty home-nest into a
tomb? Had God so punished her for this one offence, that she must
never lift her head to the sunlight again?
Sitting there alone in the midst of the shadows that gathered around
her with funereal solemnity, Ruth asked herself this question,
pressing her slender hands together, and shivering with nervous cold
as she looked around on the dark objects in the little room, linked
with such cruel tenderness to the father she had lost, that they
seemed to reproach her on every side.
"Ah, me! I cannot stay here all alone--all alone, and he gone! It is
like sitting in a well. My feet are like ice. My tears are turning to
hoar-frost. But he is colder than I am--happier, too, for he could
die. One swift trouble pierced him, and he fell; but they shoot me
through and through without killing. After all, I am more unhappy than
the dead. If he knew this, oh, how my poor father would pity me! How
he would long to take me with him, knowing that I have done wrong, but
am not wicked! Oh, does he understand this? Will the angels be
merciful, and let him know?"
The poor child was not weeping, but sat there in the shadows of that
home from which she had sent away her best friends, terrified by the
darkness, dumb and trodden down under the force of her own reproaches,
which beat upon her heart as the after swell of a tempest tramples the
resistless shore. It seemed as if existence for her must henceforth be
a continued atonement, that could avail nothing. In all the black
horizon there was, for this child, but one gleam of light, and that
broke upon her like a sin.
Her husband! She had seen him for one dizzy moment; his head had
rested on her bosom. While panting with weakness, and undue exertion,
he had found time to whisper how dear she was to him. Yes, yes! there
was one ray of hope for her yet. It had struck her father down like a
flash of lightning, and the very thought of it blinded her soul. Still
the light was there, though she was afraid to look upon it.
A noise at the gate, a step on the gravel, a wild bound of her wounded
heart, and then it fell back aching. Hurst came in slowly; he was
feeble yet, and excitement had left him pale. Ruth arose, but did not
go forward to meet him. She dared not, but stood trembling from head
to foot. He came forward with his arms extended.
"Ruth! My poor girl; my dear, sweet wife!"
She answered him with a great sob, and fell upon his bosom, weeping
passionately. His voice had lifted her out of the solemnity of her
despair. She was no longer in a tomb.
"Do not sob so, my poor darling. Am I not here?" said the young man,
pressing her closer and closer to his bosom.
She clung to him desperately, still convulsed with grief.
"Be tranquil. Do compose yourself, my beloved."
"I am so lonely," she said, "and I feel so terribly wicked. Oh,
Walton, we killed him. You and I. No, no; not that. I did it. No one
else could."
"Hush, hush, darling! This is taking upon yourself pain without cause.
I come to say this, knowing it would give you a little comfort. I
questioned the doctor. They sent for him again, for I was suffering
from the shock, and nearly broken down. Ill as I was, this death
preyed upon me worse than the fever, so I questioned the doctor
closely. I demanded that he should make sure of the causes that led to
your father's death. He did make sure. While you were shut up in your
room, mourning and inconsolable, there was a medical examination. Your
father might have lived a few hours longer but for the sudden shock of
my presence here; but he must have died from his wound. No power on
earth could have saved him. That was the general opinion."
Ruth hushed her sobs, and lifted her face, on which the tears still
trembled; for the first time since her father's death a gleam of hope
shone in her eyes.
"Is this so, Walton?"
"Indeed it is. I would have broken loose from them all, and told you
this before, but my presence seemed to drive you wild."
"It did--it did."
"That terrible night you sent me from the house, with such pitiful
entreaties to be left alone. You preferred to be with the dead rather
than me."
"That was when I thought we had killed him. That was when I felt like
a murderess. But it is over now. I can breathe again. He is gone--my
poor father is gone, but I did not kill him--I did not kill him! Oh,
Walton, there is no sin in my kisses now; nothing but tears."
The poor young creature trembled under this shock of new emotions. The
great horror was gone. She no longer clung to her husband with the
feeling of a criminal.
"You have suffered, my poor child. We have both suffered, because I
was selfishly rash; more than that, a coward."
"No, no. Rash, but not a coward," broke in Ruth, impetuously. "You
shrunk from giving pain, that is all."
"But I shrink no longer. That which we have done must be publicly
known."
"How? What are you saying?"
"That you are my wife, my honored and beloved wife, and as such Sir
Noel, nay, the whole world, must know you."
Then Ruth remembered Richard Storms, and his dangerous threats. She
was enfeebled by long watching, and terrified by the thought of new
domestic tempests.
"Not yet, oh, not yet. Walton, you terrify me."
"But, my darling!--"
"Not yet, I say. Let us rest a little. Let us stop and draw breath
before we breast another storm. I have no strength for it."
"But, Ruth, this is no home for you."
"The dear home--the dear old home. I was afraid of it. I shuddered in
it only a little while ago; but now it is no longer a prison, no
longer a sepulchre. I cannot bear to leave it."
"Ruth, your home is up yonder. It should have been so from the first,
only I had not the courage to resist your pleadings for delay; but
now--"
"But now you will wait because I so wish it. Oh, Walton, I have not
the courage to ask a place under your father's roof. Give me a little
time."
"It is natural that you should shrink, being a woman," said Hurst,
kissing the earnest face lifted to his. "But it shames me to have set
you the example."
Ruth answered this with pathetic entreaty, which she strove to render
playful.
"Being two culprits. One brave, the other a poor coward, you will have
compassion, and let her hide away yet a while."
"No, Ruth! We--I have done wrong, but for the hurt that struck me
down, I should have told my father long ago. I meant to do it the very
next day. It was his entreaties that I dreaded, not his wrath. I
doubted myself, more than his forgiveness. Had he been less generous,
less noble, I should not have cared to conceal anything from him."
"But having done so, let it rest a while, Walton; I am so weary, so
afraid."
Ruth wound her arms around the young man's neck, and enforced her
entreaties with tearful caresses. She was, indeed, completely broken
down. He felt that it would be cruelty to force her into new
excitements now, and gave way.
"Be it as you wish," he said, gently. "Only remember you have no
protector here, and it is not for my honor that the future lady of
'The Rest' should remain long in any home but that of her husband."
"Yes, I know, but this place has been so dear to me. Remember, will
you, that the little birds are never taken from the nest all at once.
They first flutter, then poise themselves on the side, by-and-by hop
off to a convenient twig, flutter to a branch and back again. I am in
the nest, and afraid, as yet. Do you understand?"
"Yes, darling, I understand."
"And you will say nothing, as yet. Hush!" whispered Ruth, looking
wildly over his shoulder. "I hear something."
"It is nothing."
"How foolish I am! Of course it is nothing. We are quite alone; but
every moment it seems as if I must hear my father's step on the
threshold, as I heard it that night. It frightened me, then; now I
could see him without dread, because I think that he knows how it is."
"Before many days we shall be able to see the whole world without
dread," answered Hurst, very tenderly. "Till then, good-night."
"Good-night, Walton, good-night. You see that I can smile, now. I have
lost my father, but the bitterness of sorrow is all gone. I had other
troubles and some fears that seemed important while he was alive; but
now I can hardly remember them. Great floods swallow up everything in
their way. I have but just come out of the storm where it seemed as if
I was wrecked forever. So I have no little troubles, now. Good-by. I
shall dream after this. Good-by."