smiled, another face rose
suddenly before her--Dare's pale and serious, as it had been of late,
with the wistful, anxious eyes. _He_, at least, had meant a great deal,
she thought with remorse. _He_ had been in earnest, sufficiently in
earnest to make himself very unhappy, and on her account.

Ruth had known for some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that
simple, unobtrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly
out of the shadow and looked her in the face.

He loved her. Well, what then?

She turned giddy, and leaned her head against the open shutter.

In the silence the words that had haunted her all the afternoon came
back; not loud as heretofore, but in a whisper, speaking to her heart,
which had begun to beat fast and loud.

_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_

What work was there for her to do?

The giddiness and the whirl in her mind died down suddenly like a great
gust on the surface of a lake, and left it still and clear and cold.

The misery of the world and the inability to meet it had so often
confused and weighed her down that she had come back humbly of late to
the only possibility with which it was in her power to deal, come back
to the well-worn groove of earnest determination to do as much as in her
lay, close at hand, when she could find a field to labor in. And now she
suddenly saw, or thought she saw, that she had found it. She had been
very anxious as to whether Dare would do his duty, but till this moment
it had never struck her that it might be _her_ duty to help him.

She liked him; and he was poor--too poor to do much for the people who
were dependent on him, the poor, struggling people of Vandon. Their
sullen, miserable faces rose up before her, and their crazy houses.
Fever had broken out again in the cottages by the river. He needed help
and encouragement, for he had a difficult time before him. And she had
these to give, and money too. Could she do better with them? She knew
Mr. Alwynn wished it. And as to herself? Was she never going to put self
on one side? She had never liked any one very much--at least, not in
that way--but she liked him.

The words came like a loud voice in the silence. She liked him. Well,
what then?

She shut her eyes, but she only shut out the moon's pale photographs of
the fields and woods. She could not shut out these stern besieging
thoughts.

Wh