an she was apt to speak to this young man. It
almost seemed that she was trying to sustain him, and help him to tell
his story. "I am not a child you know," she added, still with a smile.

"You do not know what you are talking about," he said, hoarsely. "Ruth,
won't you please go up-stairs and tell your father I want him as soon as
possible?"

She turned from him half impatiently.

"My father will be down as soon as possible," she said, coldly. "He is
not accustomed to keep gentlemen waiting beyond what is necessary.
Meantime, if you know, will you be kind enough to give me news of Mr.
Wayne? I beg you, Mr. Mitchell, to remember that I am not a silly child,
to whom you need be afraid to give a message, if you have one."

He must answer her now; there was no escape.

"He is," he began, and then he stopped. And her clear, cold, grave eyes
looked right at him and waited. His next sentence commenced almost in a
moan. "Oh, Ruth, you _will_ make me tell you! It is all over. He has
gone."

"Gone!" she repeated, incredulously, still staring at him. "Where is he
gone?"

What an awful question! She realized it herself almost the instant it
passed her lips. It made her shudder visibly. But she neither screamed
nor fainted, nor in any way, except that strange one, betrayed emotion.
Instead, she said:

"Be seated, Mr. Mitchell, and excuse me; father is coming." Then she
turned and went back up-stairs.

He heard her firm step on the stairs as she went slowly up; and this
poor bearer of faithful tidings shut his face into both his hands and
groaned aloud for such misery as could not vent itself in any natural
way. He understood that there was something more than ordinary sorrow in
Ruth's face. It was as if she had been petrified.

Through the days that followed Ruth passed as one in a dream. Everyone
was very kind. Her father showed a talent for patience and gentleness
that no one had known he possessed.

The girls came to see her; but she would not be seen. She shrank from
them. They did not wonder at that; they were half relieved that it was
so. Such a pall seemed to them to have settled suddenly over her life
that they felt at a loss what to say, how to meet her. So when she sent
to them, from her darkened and gloomy room, kind messages of thanks for
their kindness, and asked them to further show their sympathy by
allowing her to stay utterly alone for awhile, they drew relieved sighs
and went away. This much they und