There were
times when something seemed frozen in her heart and she could go on
doing the usual things mechanically, just because she knew so well how
to do them; then there were other times when every smallest thing was
stabbed through and through with the consciousness that she would not be
doing it again. And yet even then, she could go on, could appear the
same. They were days of a terrible power for bearing pain. When the
people of the town looked back to it, recalling everything they could
about Ruth Holland in those days, some of them, remembering a tenderness
in her manner with Edith, talked of what a hypocrite she was, while
others satisfied themselves of her utter heartlessness in remembering
her gaiety.

It was two days before the wedding when she saw that she was not going
to be able to tell Edith and got the idea of telling Edith's mother.
Refusing to let herself consider what she would say when she began upon
it, she went over there early that morning--Edith would not be up.

Mrs. Lawrence was at breakfast alone. Ruth kept herself hard against the
welcoming smile, but it seemed she was surely going to cry when, with a
look of concern, Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed: "Why, Ruth dear, how pale you
are!"

She was telling Emma to bring Ruth a cup of coffee, talking of how
absurd it was the way the girls were wearing themselves out, how, for
that reason, she would be glad when it was all over. She spoke with
anxiety of how nervous Edith had grown in the past week, how tired she
was as a result of all the gaiety. "We'll have to be very careful of
her, Ruth," she said. "Don't go to Edith with any worries, will you?
Come to me. The slightest thing would upset Edith now."

Ruth only nodded; she did not know what to say to that; certainly, after
that, she did not know how to say the things she had come to tell. For
what in the world could upset Edith so much as to have her
maid-of-honor, her life-long friend, the girl she cared for most,
refuse, two days before her wedding, to take her part in it?

"And you can do more than anyone else, Ruth," Mrs. Lawrence urged. "You
know Edith counts so on you," she added with an intimate little smile.

And again Ruth only nodded, and bent over her coffee. She had a feeling
of having been caught, of being helpless.

Mrs. Lawrence was talking about the caterer for the wedding; she wished
it were another kind of salad. Then she wanted Ruth to come up and look
at her dress; she wasn