bled air. She went up to him: "Frank, you accused me
of doing that dreadful thing. I have just remembered what you said--that
you saw me push her. I did not: I put out my hand to save her."

"I hope to God you did!" said he, but his look was doubting and
reproachful.

"Why, Frank," she said, with scarcely enough breath to speak the words,
"if you do not believe me it will kill me!"

Just then some one came to the door and beckoned to him, and he went
out. Ruth turned, with a breaking heart, to go up stairs. The youthful
jeweller was talking to Mrs. Tascher in the hall. "Yes," he was saying,
"I saw it all. She was standing leaning over the well, and was just
turning to step back when she gave a sort of lurch as if she had got
dizzy, and Miss Stanley reached out her hand and caught her by the
shoulder. But she had got the start of her, and over she went in a
twinkling. The whole thing was done in an instant."

"Oh, Mr. Omes, I wish you would explain all that to Doctor Ebling," said
Ruth, coming up.

"Oh, he knows all about it: he saw it the same as I did," said the young
man.

A suspicion crossed Ruth's mind that the doctor _knew_, but she could
not believe him so base.

Miss Custer was doomed to have a serious time of it, after all. The
great excitement brought on fever again, and for some days her recovery
was thought doubtful. Everybody in the house did all that was in her or
his power to do, and the doctor was more devoted than ever. It became a
fixed idea that he would marry Miss Custer as soon as she was able to
sit up. He and Ruth scarcely spoke to each other.

One day Mrs. Tascher told Ruth she must go away.

"Yes, I know," answered Ruth: "I am going."

She packed her trunk again--this time taking all her things--and went
back to her aunt's. In less than a week Mrs. Tascher had a letter from
her stating that she had started, under the escort of a friend of her
guardian's, for Beirut.

It was so great a shock to Mrs. Tascher that she scarcely left her room
for ten days after it, and indeed did not wholly recover until another
letter came, dated from far-off Syria, with a curious commingling of the
strange and the familiar in the well-known handwriting and the foreign
post-mark, assuring her that her young friend was safely sheltered under
the protection of her guardian and his estimable wife. Ruth dwelt
entirely upon her new experience, and never mentioned the old. She had
not so much to say about her