Louis put his key in the latch and opened the door. It was very quiet; he supposed every one had retired. He flung his hat and overcoat on a chair and walked toward the staircase. As he passed the drawing-room, a stream of light came from beneath the portiere. He hesitated in surprise, everything was so quiet. Probably the last one had forgotten to put out the lights. He stepped noiselessly up and entered the room. His footfall made no sound on the soft carpet as he moved about putting out the lights.
He walked to the mantel to blow out the candles, but stopped, dumfounded, within a foot of it. The thing that disturbed him was the motionless white figure of his cousin. It might have been a marble statue, so lifeless she seemed, though her face was hidden in her hands.
For a moment Arnold was terrified; but the feeling was immediately succeeded by one of exquisite pain. He was a man not slow to conjecture; by some intuition he understood.
He regained his presence of mind and turned quietly to quit the room; his innate delicacy demanded it. He had but turned when a low, moaning sound arrested him; he came back irresolutely.
"Did you call, Ruth?"
Silence.
"Ruth, it is I, Louis, who is speaking to you. Do you know how late it is?"
With gentle force he drew her fingers from her face. The mute misery there depicted was pitiful.
"Come, go to bed, Ruth," he said as to a child.
She made a movement to rise, but sank back again.
"I am so tired, Louis," she pleaded in a voice of tears, like a weary child.
"Yes, I know; but I will help you." The unfamiliar, gentle quality of his voice penetrated even to her numbed senses.
She had not seen him since the night he had asked her to be his wife. No remembrance of this came to her, but his presence held something new and restful. She allowed him to draw her to her feet; and as calmly as a brother he led her upstairs and into her room. Without a question he lit the gas for her.
"Good-night, Ruth," he said, blowing out the match. "Go right to bed; your head will be relieved by sleep."
"Thank you, Louis," she said, feeling dimly grateful for something his words implied; "good-night."
Arnold noiselessly closed the door behind him. She quickly locked it and sat down in the nearest chair.
Her hands were interlaced so tightly that her nails left imprints in the flesh. She had something to consider. Oh dear, it was such a simple thing; was she to break her father's heart, or her own and--his? Her father's, or his.
It was so stupid to sit and repeat it. Surely it was decided long ago.
Such a long time ago, when her father's loving face had put on its misery.
Would it look that way always? No, no, no! She would not have it; she dared not; it was too utterly wretched.
Still, there was some one else at the thought of whom her temples throbbed wildly. It would hurt him; she knew it. The thought for a moment was a miserable ecstasy; for he loved her, --her, simple Ruth Levice, --beyond all doubting she knew he loved her; and, oh, father, father, how she loved him! Why must she give it all up? she questioned fiercely; did she owe no duty to herself? Was she to drag out all the rest of her weary life without his love? Life! It would be a lingering death, and she was young yet in years. Other girls had married with graver obstacles, in open rupture with their parents, and they had been happy. Why could not she?
It was not as if he were at fault; no one dared breathe a word against his fair fame. To look at his strong, handsome face meant confidence. That was when he left the room.
Some one else had left the room also. Some one who had loved her all her life, some one who had grown accustomed in more than twenty years to listen gladly for her voice, to anticipate every wish, to hold her as in the palm of a loving hand, to look for and rest on her unquestioned love. He too had left the room; but he was not strong and handsome, poor, poor old father with his small bent shoulders. What a wretched thing it is to be old and have the heart-strings that have so confidently twisted themselves all these years around another rudely cut off, --and that by your only child!
At the thought an icy quiet stole over her. How long she sat there, musing, debating, she did not know. When the gray dawn broke, she rose up calmly and seated herself at her writing-table. She wrote steadily for some time without erasing a single word. She addressed the envelope without a falter over the name.
"That is over," she said audibly and deliberately.
A cock crowed. It was the beginning of another day.
