“You worried yourself about me?”
“Certainly. You don’t suppose I
want my pupil to break her neck?”
“You do Madcap injustice. Why, yesterday
she jumped—she almost flew—
this very gate on which I am leaning.”
“The more reason—” he began,
and broke off. His tone had been light, but
when he spoke again it had grown graver, sincerer.
“It is a fact that I worried about you, but
that is not all the reason why I am here. The
whole truth is more selfish. . . . Ruth, I cannot
do without you.”
She put up a hand, leaning back against the gate as
though giddy.
“But why?” he urged, as she made no other
response. “Is it that you still doubt
me—or yourself, perhaps?”
“Both,” she murmured. “It
is not so easy as you pretend.” Bliss had
weakened her for a while, but the weakness was passing.
“Those women have been talking to you.
I can engage, whatever they said, I gave it back
to ’em with interest. They sail by the
next ship. . . . But what did they say?”
“They say. What say they? Let
them say,” Ruth quoted, her lips smiling
albeit her eyes were moist. “Does it matter
what they said?”
“No; for I can guess. However the old
harridan put it, you were asked to give me up; and,
after all, everything turns on our answer to that.
I have given you mine. What of yours?”
He stepped close. “Ruth, will you give
me up?”
She put out her hands as one groping, sightless, and
in pain.
“Ah, you are cruel! . . . You know I cannot.”
THE BRIDALS.
BETROTHED.
Sir Oliver rode back to Boston that same evening.
Ruth had stipulated that his promise to her folk
in the beach cottage still held good; that when the
three years were out, and not a day before, she would
return to them and make her announcement. Meanwhile,
although the coast would soon be clear of her enemies
and he desired to have her near, she begged off returning
to Sabines. Here at Sweetwater Farm she could
ride, with the large air about her and freedom to
think. It was not that she shirked books and
tutors. She would turn to them again, by-and-by.
But at Sweetwater she could think things out, and she
had great need of thinking.
He yielded. He was passionately in love and
could deny her nothing. He would ride over and
pay his respects once a week.
So he took his leave, and Ruth abode with the Corderys
and Miss Quiney. Disloyal though she felt it,
she caught herself wishing, more than once, that her
lord could have taken dear Tatty back with him to Boston.
I desire to depict Ruth Josselin here as the woman
she was, not as an angel.
