Paul Colbert’s troubled perplexity grew deeper as he continued to look at Philip Alston and to listen as he talked.  The softness of his voice, the culture that every word revealed, the intellectual quality of each thought, the clear, calm, steady gaze of his fine eyes, the noble shape of his distinguished head—­all these things taken together almost made the young doctor feel that Philip Alston was the victim of monstrous calumny.  And yet some unerring intuition told him that the terrible things which he had heard were true.  His gaze wandered from Philip Alston to Ruth, and he grew sick.  A sudden cold dampness gathered on his forehead under all the mellow warmth of the sun.  He began to wish that he could get away long enough to clear his mind—­to think.  It was rather a relief when Philip Alston suggested that William Pressley should lead Ruth out for the next dance.  Paul Colbert’s gaze followed them as they walked away across the sun-lit grass, but he scarcely knew that he was looking at them till Philip Alston spoke.

“They are a handsome, well-matched young couple, are they not?” he said with a smile, and with his eyes on the young doctor’s face.  “You know, of course, that they are to be married on Christmas Eve.”

XII

The eve of all souls’

Ruth saw Paul Colbert when he passed Cedar House for the first time without stopping.  He was riding very fast, and she feared that the Cold Plague must be growing worse.  Still, a glance at her chamber window would not have delayed him, and she wondered why he did not turn his head.  She was almost sure he must know that she always gave the birds their supper on the window-sill at that hour.  She did not know that he had seen her without looking, and had borne away in his heart a picture of her slight white form, framed by the sun-lit window, and surrounded by the fluttering birds.  Disappointed, wondering, and vaguely troubled, she gazed after him as long as he was visible amid the green gloom of the forest path.  And then when he was lost to sight, she turned sharply on the boldest blue jay.

“Go ’way, you greedy thing!  You startled me.  I wasn’t thinking about any of you.  How tiresome you all are!  To teach you better manners, I am going to throw this down to Trumpeter,” leaning forward to see the swan which stood on the grass below, anxiously watching everything that went on above.  “There!  That is the last nice fat crumb.”

The day had seemed endlessly long.  She went wearily down the stairs again, as she had done many times since morning.  Neither the judge nor William was at home.  Miss Penelope and the widow Broadnax were in their accustomed places, and matters around the hearth were going forward as usual.  Miss Penelope had asked fiercely in her mildest tone, what anybody could expect to become of any country, when one of the biggest towns in it built a theatre before