re; never to have doubts and fears come
knocking, knocking, knocking at your heart till you are compelled to see
your mistakes when it is too late to do what was left undone,
and--saddest and bitterest of all--too late to undo what was done.

But no one except Ruth looked at William Pressley or thought of him.
Philip Alston calmly and courteously repeated his request, and with
Ruth's gaze urging it, Paul Colbert could not refuse to grant it. He
took up his hat and went toward the door with Ruth walking by his side.
And then, with his hand on the latch, he paused and turned, and looking
over her head, gazed steadily and meaningly into the eyes of the three
men. He looked first and longest at Philip Alston; then at William
Pressley, and finally at the judge, with a slight change of expression.
To each one of the three men his look said as plainly as if it had been
put into words, that he held himself ready for anything and everything
that any or all of them might have to say to him--out of her sight and
hearing and knowledge. And they, in turn, understood, for that was the
way of their country, of their time, and their kind; and having done
this he went quietly away.

XXIV

OLD LOVE'S STRIVING WITH YOUNG LOVE

That night Philip Alston stayed later than usual at Cedar House. He was
waiting for the others to go to bed, so that he might have a quiet talk
with Ruth. On one or two rare occasions they had been left alone
together before the wide hearth, and they both looked back on these
times as among the pleasantest they had ever known. But the
opportunities for privacy are very few where there is only one living
room for an entire family, and the size and publicity of this great room
of Cedar House made them fewer than they could have been in almost any
other household. And Ruth, seeing what he wished, was looking forward
now with even greater delight than she had felt heretofore; the delight
that young love feels at the thought of giving its first confidence to a
loving, sympathetic heart. She looked at him often through the waiting,
with shining eyes, so happy, so eager to ask him to share her happiness
that she could hardly wait till the others were gone. William Pressley
did not tax her patience long and the judge, too, soon went away to his
cabin with David to see that he reached it safely. The old ladies were
slower in going; Miss Penelope had many domestic duties to perform, and
the movements of the widow