dared to advance so far, and murmured,

"Ruth, look in the Manzini. The duets. The book my uncle gave me."

"Niece Ruth," said Rachel's voice from the sitting-room door-way. Reuben
dropped the hands he held, becoming conscious in that action only of
the fact that he had taken them, and stepped into the dusky passage,
thankful for the gloom, for he felt that he was blushing like a boy.
Ruth had made a guilty start forward into the garden, and did not pause
until she had reached the table. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Rachel,
frostily, as she moved aside to make room for Reuben to pass her, but
when she had once seen the young people wide apart she was satisfied,
and forbore to call the girl again.

"Look in the Manzini," Reuben had said, and the girl, almost without
knowing it, had paused with her hands resting on the glazed brown
mill-board which bound it. He would think, if she opened the book at
once, that she was curiously eager to obey him, and her heart told her
pretty truly what she would find when she looked there. The fear almost
made her turn away; but then, since she was there, if she did not care
to look he would think her cruelly disdainful. Was anybody watching
her? In every nerve she felt the eyes of all the party in the
sitting-room as if they actually pierced and burned her. But standing
with bent head, with an attitude of reverie which she felt to be
unspeakably guilty, she raised the board with an air of chance, a
semblance of no interest touching her features--as though that could
influence anybody, since her face was hidden--and saw a letter with her
name upon it. To lay one hand upon this, and to slip it into the pocket
of her dress while actually turning with a look of nonchalance towards
the sitting-room window, was felt by the criminal herself to be the most
barefaced and wickedest of pretences. To make the tour of the garden
afterwards with the letter in her pocket, and to gather flowers for a
bouquet for the tea-table, while tea was actually ready and everybody
was awaiting her, was at once a necessity, an hypocrisy, and a dreadful
breach of good-manners.

She took her place at the tea-table with perfect innocence and
unconsciousness of aspect; but Reuben looked guilty enough for two,
until the genuine gravity of the situation recalled him to himself, when
he began to look as solemn as a graven image, and returned wry
answers to the talk of those about him. There was no calling back his