h 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 rememb