“I thought you would be quiet at this hour,” said Rose Delano, seating herself opposite her friend in the library, the Thursday evening after the funeral. They looked so different even in the waning light,—Ruth in soft black, her white face shining like a lily above her sombre gown, Rose, like a bright firefly, perched on a cricket, her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling from walking against the sharp, cold wind.
“We are always quiet now,” she answered softly; “friends come and go, but we are very quiet. It does me good to see you, Rosebud.”
“Does it?” her sweet eyes smiled happily. “I was longing to drop in if only to hold your hand for a minute; but I did not know exactly where to find you.”
“Why, where could I be but here?”
“I thought possibly you had removed to your husband’s home.”
For a second Ruth looked at her wonderingly; then the slow rich color mounted, inch by inch, back to her little ears till her face was one rosy cloud.
“No; I have stayed right on.”
“I saw the doctor to-day,” she chatted. “He looks pale; is he too busy?”
“I do not know,—that is, I suppose so. How are the lessons, Rose?”
“Everything is improving wonderfully; I am so happy, dear Mrs. Kemp, and what I wished to say was that all happiness and all blessings should, I pray, fall on you two who have been so much to me. Miss Gwynne told me that to do good was your birthright. She said that the funeral, with its vast gathering of friends, rich, poor, old, young, strong, and crippled of all grades of society, was a revelation of his life even to those who thought they knew him best. You should feel very proud with such sweet memories.”
“Yes,” assented Ruth, her eyes quickly suffused with tears.
They sat quietly thus for some time, till Rose, rising from her cricket, kissed her friend silently and departed.
The waning light fell softly through the lace curtains, printing quaint arabesques on the walls and furniture and bathing the room in a rich yellow light. A carriage rolled up in front of the house. Dr. Kemp handed the reins to his man and alighted. He walked slowly up to the door. It was very still about the house in the evening twilight. He pushed his hat back on his head and looked up at the clear blue sky, as if the keen breeze were pleasant to his temples. Then with a quick motion, as though recalling his thoughts, he turned and rang the bell. The latchkey of the householder was not his.
Ruth, sitting in the shadows, had scarcely heard the ring. She was absorbed in a new train of thought. Rose Delano was the first one who had clearly brought home to her the thought that she was really married. She had been very quiet with her other friends, and every one, looking at her grief-stricken face, had shrunk from mentioning what would have called for congratulation. Rose, who knew only these two, naturally dwelt on their changed relations. Her husband! Her dormant love gave an exultant bound. Wave upon wave of emotion beat upon her heart; she sprang to her feet; the door opened, and he came in. He saw her standing faintly outlined in the dark.
“Good-evening,” he said, coming slowly toward her with extended hand; “have you been quite well to-day?” He felt her fingers tremble in his close clasp, and let them fall slowly. “Bob sent you these early violets. Shall I light the gas?”
“If you will.”
He turned from her and rapidly filled the room with light.
“Where is your mother?” he asked, turning toward her again. Her face was hidden in the violets.
“Upstairs with Louis. They had something to arrange. Did you wish to see her?” To judge from Ruth’s manner, Kemp might have been a visitor.
“No,” he replied. “If you will sit down, we can talk quietly till they come in.”
As she resumed her high-backed chair and he seated himself in another before her, he was instantly struck by some new change in her face. The faraway, impersonal look with which she had met him in these sad days had been what he had expected, and he had curbed with a strong will every impulse for any closer recognition. But this new look,—what did it mean? In the effort to appear unconcerned the dark color had risen to his own cheeks.
“I had quite a pleasant little encounter to-day,” he observed; “shall I tell it to you?”
“If it will not tire you.”
Keeping his eyes fixed on the picture over her head, he did not see the look of anxious love that dwelt in her eyes as they swept over him.
“Oh, no,” he responded, slightly smiling over the recollection. “I was coming down my office steps this afternoon, and had just reached the foot, when a bright-faced, bright-haired boy stood before me with an eager light in his eyes. ‘Aren’t you Dr. Kemp?’ he asked breathlessly, like one who had been running. I recollected him the instant he raised his hat from his nimbus of golden hair. ‘Yes; and you are Will Tyrrell,’ I answered promptly. ‘Why, how did you remember?’ he asked in surprise; ‘you saw me only once.’ ‘Never mind; I remember that night,’ I answered. ‘How is that baby sister of yours?’ ‘Oh, she’s all right,’ he replied dismissing the subject with the royalty that brotherhood confers. ‘I say, do you ever see Miss Levice nowadays?’ I looked at him with a half-smile, not knowing whether to set him right or not, when he finally blurted out, ‘She’s the finest girl I ever met. Do you know her well, Doctor?’ ‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I know her slightly,—she is my wife.’”
He had told the little incident brightly; but as he came to the end, his voice gradually lowered, and as he pronounced the last word, his eyes sought hers. Her eyelids fluttered; her breath seemed suspended.
“I said you were my wife,” he repeated softly, leaning forward, his hands grasping the chair-arms.
“And what,” asked Ruth, a little excited ring in her voice,—“what did Will say?”
“Who cared?” he asked, quickly moving closer to her; “do you?” He caught her hand in his, scarce knowing what he said, and interlaced his fingers with hers.
“Ruth,” he asked below his breath, “have you forgotten entirely what we are to each other?”
It was such a cruel lover’s act to make her face him thus, her bosom panting, her face changing from white to red and from red to white.
“Have you, sweet love?” he insisted.
“No,” she whispered, trying to turn her head from him.
“No, who?”
With an irrepressible movement she sprang up, pushing his hand from hers. He rose also, his face pale and disturbed, and indescribable fear overpowering him.
“You mean,” he said quietly, “that you no longer love me,—say it now and have it over.”
“Oh,” she cried in exquisite pain, “why do you tantalize me so—can’t you see that—”
She looked so beautiful thus confessed that with sudden ecstacy he drew her to him and pressed his lips in one long kiss to hers.
A little later Mrs. Levice and Louis came down. Mrs. Levice entered first and stood still; Louis, looking over her shoulder, saw too—nothing but Ruth standing encircled by her husband’s arm; her lovely face smiled into his, which looked down at her with an expression that drove every drop of blood from Arnold’s face. For a moment they were unseen; but when Ruth, who was the first to feel their presence, started from Kemp as if she had committed a crime, Arnold came forward entirely at his ease.
Kemp met Mrs. Levice with outstretched hands and smiling eyes.
“Good-evening, Mother,” he said; “we had just been speaking of you.” Mrs. Levice looked into his deep, tender eyes, and raising her arm, drew his head down and kissed him.
Ruth had rolled forward a comfortable chair, and stood beside it with shy, sweet look as her mother sat down and drew her down beside her. Sorrow had softened Mrs. Levice wonderfully; and looking for love, she wooed everybody by her manner.
“What were you saying of me?” she asked, keeping Ruth’s hand in hers and looking up at Kemp, who leaned against the mantel-shelf, his face radiant with gladness.
“We were saying that it will do you good to come out of this great house to our little one, till we find something better.”
Mrs. Levice looked across at Louis, who stood at the piano, his back half turned, looking over a book.
“It is very sweet to be wanted by you all now,” she said, her voice trembling slightly; “but I never could leave this house to strangers,—every room is too full of old associations, and sweet memories of him. Louis wants me to go down the coast with him soon, stopping for a month or so at Coronado. Go to your cottage meanwhile by yourselves; even I should be an intruder. There, Ruth, don’t I know? And when we come back, we shall see. It is all settled, isn’t it, Louis?”
He turned around then.
“Yes, I feel that I need a change of scene, and I should like to have her with me; you do not need her now.”
Ruth looked at his careworn face, and said with tender solicitude,—
“You are right, Louis.”
And so it was decided.
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