s dearer and clearer than all spoken eloquence.

The same trait in her, only less marked, was as satisfying to him, and
from one rare utterance to another their thoughts moved like consorted
ships from light to light along a home coast. A motion, a glance, a
gleam, a shade, told its tale, as across leagues of silence a shred of
smoke may tell one dweller in the wilderness the way or want of another.
Such converse may have been a mere phase of the New Englander's passion
for economy, or only the survival of a primitive spiritual commerce
which most of us have lost through the easier use of speech and print;
but the sister took calm delight in it, and it bound the two to each
other as though it were itself a sort of goodness or greatness.

"They have it of their mother," the old General sometimes said to
himself.

There were moments, too, when their intercourse was still more subtle,
and now they sat without exchange of glance or gesture, silent as chess
players, looking up the narrow water into a sunset exquisite in the
delicacy of its silvery plumes, fleeces pink and dusk, and illimitable
distances of palest green seen through fan-rays of white light shot down
from one dark, unthreatening cloud.

"Leonard," at length said the sister, as if she had studied every
possibility on the board before touching the chosen piece, "couldn't you
go away for a time?"

And with deliberate readiness the other gentle voice replied, "I don't
think I'd better."

While they spoke their gaze rested on the changing beauties of pool and
sky, and after the brief inquiry and response it still remained, though
the inner glow of their mutual love and worship deepened and warmed as
did the colors of the heavens and of the glassing waters. The brother
knew full well Ruth's poignant sense of his distresses; and to her his
mute tongue and unbent head were a sister's convincement that he would
endure them in a manner wholly faithful to every one of the loved hands
that had lain under his the evening Godfrey had said good-by.

[Illustration: Indeed it was clear that to go away would be unfair.]

Indeed, it was clear that to go away--unless he honestly felt too weak
to remain--would be unfair to almost every person, every interest,
concerned; and such a step was but second choice in Ruth's mind,
conditioned solely on any unreadiness he might have uprightly to bear
the burden brought upon him by--well, after all, by his own too
confident miscalc