tay near the sleeping
babe, and she would spend the evening with her mother. She and Arthur
went together as far as the cross-paths in the arbor, and there, in
parting, he clasped and kissed her with a sudden frenzy that only added
one more distressful misgiving to the many that now haunted her days.

She found her mother alone. They sat down, hand in hand, before an open
fire, and had talked in sweet quietness but a short while, when a chance
word and the knowledge that this time they would not be interrupted made
it easy for Isabel to say things she had for weeks been trying to say.

XIV

THE TALKATIVE LEONARD

Across the street the father of Leonard and Ruth, already abed, lay
thinking of their tribulation and casting about in his mind for some new
move that might help to end it happily. Godfrey had not come. He had not
looked for him to appear with a hop, skip, and a jump, "a man under
authority" as he was; but here were five months gone.

"I can't clamor for him," thought he, and feared Ruth had written him
that the emergency was past. And so she had, in those days of new hope
and new suspense which had followed for a while Arthur's withdrawal of
his resignation.

At the fireside below sat Leonard and Ruth, not hand in hand, like
Isabel and her mother, yet conversing on the same theme as they.

Leonard had spent the day at the polls; his party had won an easy
victory; and, though not on the ticket, he was now awaiting a
telegraphic summons to the state capital. His fortunes were growing.
Yet that was not a thing to be wordy about, and now, when the murmur of
his voice continued so long and steadily that it found even the dulled
ear of the aged father in the upper room, that father knew what the
topic must be. On all other matters the son and brother had become more
silent than ever,--was being nicknamed far and near, flatteringly and
otherwise, for his reticence; but let Ruth sit down with him alone and
barely draw near this theme,--this wound,--and his speech bled from him
and would not be stanched.

"I can admit I have made the mistake of my life," he said, "but I cannot
and will not, even now, give up and say there is nothing to be saved out
of it. It's a mistake that has bound me to her, to you, to Godfrey, to
him, to all, and demands of me, pinioned and blindfolded as I am, every
effort I can make, every device I can contrive, to compel him to free
her and you and all of us from this torture.