CHAPTER XLVI.

THE SERPENT IN HER PATH.

When Ruth left her father, he was overtaxed by the excitement of seeing his old friend, the housekeeper, and more than usually disturbed by the drift of her conversation. Kind of heart, and generous in his nature, he could not witness the repugnance that his daughter exhibited to the marriage he had arranged for her without tender relenting. Still, no nobleman of the realm was ever more tenacious of his honor, or shrunk more sensitively from a broken promise. Languid and weary, he was thinking over these matters, when some one, stirring in the hall below, disturbed him.

"Ruth, Ruth, is it you?" he called, in a voice tremulous with weakness.

Some one opened and shut the parlor door, then steps sounded from the passage and along the stairs. A man's step, light and quick, as if the person coming feared interruption.

"Ruth, Ruth," repeated the gardener.

"It is only I, Jessup," answered Richard Storms, stealing into the room. "There was no one below. I heard voices up here, and took the liberty of an old friend."

"You are welcome," answered the sick man, reaching out his hand, which had lost its ruddy brown since his confinement. "I think Ruth has gone out with Mrs. Mason."

"So much the better that she can leave you, I suppose," answered Storms, still holding the sick man's hand, with a finger on the pulse, while a slow cloud stole over his face. "The fever all gone? Why, man, we shall have you about in another week."

Jessup shook his head, and laid the hand he released from the young man's grasp on his breast.

"I fear not. There is a weakness here," he said.

"And pain?" questioned Storms, eagerly.

"Yes, great pain, at times; but you must not say as much to Ruth: it would fret her."

A glitter, like that of disturbed water, flashed into the young man's eyes.

"Then, as to the fever," continued the sick man, "it comes, on and off, with a chill, now and then; not much to complain of, so I say nothing about it, because of the lass."

"Oh, that is nothing, I dare say; but the people in the village hear that you are quite strong again."

Jessup smiled, a little sadly.

"So, being more than anxious, I dropped in to have a little chat with you. It's hard waiting so long, when a man is o'er fond of a lass, as I am of your daughter. One never gets a look of her in the regular way."

"Ruth has been with me so much," said Jessup, with a feeble effort at apology. "It has been hard on her, poor child."

"Yes, but you are so much better now, and father is getting vexed. He thinks Sir Noel is putting off the new lease because nothing is settled about the marriage. Things are going crosswise with us, I can tell you. It will never do for us to put matters off in this way."

Jessup was greatly disturbed. He moved restlessly, clasping and unclasping his hand on the coverlet with nervous irritation. At last he spoke more resolutely than he had yet done.

"Storms, your father and I have been neighbors and friends ever since we were boys together, and we had set our minds on being closer still; but Ruth's heart goes against it, and I cannot force her."

Storms drew close to the bed and bent his frowning face over the sick man.

"I have been expecting this. Like father like child. But a man's pledged word isn't to be broken through with by a girl's whim; or, if so, I am not the one to put up with it."

"You were always a hard one," answered Jessup, and a little strength flamed up into his gray eyes. "From a child you were that, and I have, more than once, had misgivings; but I did not think you would be bent on marrying with a lass against her will."

"Yes, I would, and like it all the better, when her will was broken."

Jessup shrunk down in his bed. There was something savage in that stern young face that terrified him. Storms saw the feeble movement, and went on:

"Never fear, man, I will find a way to bend her will, and make her love me afterward."

"I would rather have her placed by my side in the same coffin," answered the old man.

"You take back your word?" repeated Storms, savagely.

"Yes, I take back my word."

Storms turned on his heel, and without a syllable of farewell left the house. He paused a moment under the porch, and a glint of Ruth's garments caught his eye, as she was coming down the shaded wood-path, after parting with Mrs. Mason.

Ruth saw him coming, and stopped, looking around for some chance of escape, like a bird, threatened in its cage.

There was no way of escape, however. On one hand lay a deep ravine, with a brooklet at the bottom, and clothed with ferns up the sides; on the other, wild thickets, such as made that portion of a park called the wilderness picturesque.

"So, sweetheart, you were waiting for me. I thought it would come to that," said Storms.

Ruth moved on one side without answering. Storms could see that a shudder passed through her as he came near, and the evil light that had almost died out of his eyes when they fell upon her came back with fresh venom.

"So you think to escape, ha! You shy on one side, as if a wild beast blocked the path. Be careful that you don't make one of me."

"Let me pass. I wish nothing but that," faltered the girl, moving as far from her tormentor as the path would permit.

"Not till we have come to an understanding. Look you, Ruth Jessup, if you think to pull me on and off like an old glove, I am not the man for your money."

"I--I have no such thought. I have no wish to see you at all."

"Indeed!" sneered the young man.

"After what has passed it is better that we should be strangers!"

"Nay, sweetheart. I think it is better that we should be man and wife."

A disgustful shudder shook the girl where she stood.

Storms saw it, and a cold smile crept over his face.

"That is what I have been telling your father."

"My father! Surely, surely you have not been torturing him!"

"Torturing him! No. But we have come to an understanding at last."

Ruth grew pallid to the lips.

"An understanding! How?"

The terror that shook her voice was triumph to him. At least he had the power to torment her, and would use it to the utmost.

"You ask? I thought you might know what manner of man old Jessup is, without asking."

"I know that he is just but never cruel."

"Cruel! Oh, far from it. Go ask him, if you doubt."

"Let me pass, and I will," answered the girl, desperately. "At any rate, he would not sanction your rudeness in keeping me here."

"Rudeness! Of course you have never been here before. Oh, no! I haven't seen you, over and over again, watching the path. Only it wasn't rudeness when he came. There was no trembling then--nothing but blushes."

"Let me pass, I say," cried the girl, tortured into courage, "if you would not force me to tell the whole world what I know of you. Let me pass, and never dare to look upon me again."

Storms started, and a grayish pallor spread over his face. What did she know? What did she mean?

Ruth shrank from the cowardly glitter of his eyes, and wondered at the sudden pallor. What had she said to daunt him so? Directly, the coward recovered himself.

"And what would you tell?" he said, with forced audacity. "Is it a terrible sin for a man to stop the lass he is to wed, for a word wherever he chances to find her? What worse can you say of me than that?"

Ruth saw the dastardly anxiety in his face; but did not comprehend it. He seemed almost afraid of her.

"Is it nothing that you force your company upon me, when it has become hateful to me? Is it nothing that you harass a sick man with complaints, and thrust him back with unwelcome visits, when he might otherwise get well? Is it manly to come here at all, when I have told you, again and again, that your presence is the most repulsive torment on earth to me?"

The man absolutely laughed again. He was once more at ease. Her words had meant nothing more than the old complaint. Still he stood in the girl's path.

"Why will you torment me so?" she pleaded, with sudden tears. "What have I ever done that you should haunt me in my trouble?"

"I only give you trouble for hate, harsh acts for bitter words, insult for insult. You can stop them all with a word."

"A word I will never speak!" answered the girl, firmly. "Hear me once for all, Richard Storms. There was a time when you were dear to me as a playfellow, and might have been my life-long friend--"

"Friend!" repeated Storms, with a disdainful fling of the hand. "You might say that much of a hound."

"But now," continued Ruth, desperately, "there is not a thing which creeps the earth that I loath as I do the sight of you."

This was a rash speech, and the most bitter that had ever burned on those young lips. She felt that on the moment, for the man's face turned gray, as if invisible ashes had swept over it. For a while he stood motionless, then his lips parted, and he said, in a deep, hoarse voice, that made her shrink in every nerve, "There is one other sight that shall be yet more loathsome to you!"

Ruth attempted to speak, but her lips clove together. He saw a paleness like his own creeping over her face, and added, with ferocious cruelty, "Shall I tell you what it is? That of your lover--of the man who has stolen you from me--in a criminal's box, with half the county looking on."

If the fiend had intended to say more, he was prevented, for the poor girl sank to the earth, turning a wild look on his face, like a deer that he had shot.

There might have been some relenting in the man's heart, hard as it was, for he partly stooped, as if to lift his victim from the earth; but she shrunk from his touch, and fell into utter insensibility.