CHAPTER XLVII.

NIGHT ON THE BALCONY.

"I must see him. I will see him. No one will tell me the truth but himself. I must know it or die!"

Ruth stood alone under the shadow of the trees, white as a ghost, and rendered desperate by words that had smitten her into insensibility. How long she had lain in that forest path the girl scarcely knew. When she came to herself, it was with a shudder of dread, lest that evil face should be looking down upon her; but all was silent. The birds were singing close by her, and there was a soft rustle of leaves, nothing more. She lifted her head, and with her hands searched for marks of the blow that seemed to have levelled her to the earth. A blow! She remembered now it was a word that she had sunk under--a coarse, cruel word, that brought a horrid picture with it, from which every nerve in her body recoiled.

She was very feeble, now, and could scarcely walk. It seemed as if she never would get to the house; the distance appeared interminable. She could not keep in the narrow paths that coiled along the flower-beds, but wavered in her steps from weakness, as her enemy had done from wrath, until her feet were tangled in the creeping flowers and strawberry-vines.

Her father was lying with his eyes closed when she went in, and a smile was upon his mouth. Even in his feeble state, he had found strength to free his child from a hateful alliance, and the thought made him happy. Ruth stooped down, and kissed him with her cold lips. The touch startled him. He opened his eyes, and saw how wan and tremulous she was.

"Do not fret!" he said, tenderly. "Why should you, darling? I have sent him away. I have told him that the child God gave to me shall never be his!"

At another time this news would have thrilled the girl with unutterable joy; but she scarcely felt it now. The fear that a marriage with Storms might be urged upon her seemed a small trouble, while the awful possibility he had fastened on her fears was so vivid and so strong.

"I thought it would please you," said the sick man, disappointed. "I did."

"And so it does, father; but we will not talk of it now. His coming has tired you, and I--I, too, am wanting a little rest. If you do not care, I will go away, while you sleep, and stay in my own room."

"There is wine on the table. Drink a little. I suppose it may be shadows from the ivy, but you look pale, Ruth."

"Yes, it is the shadows, but I will drink some wine."

She poured some wine into a glass, and drank it thirstily; but it brought no color into her cheeks, and none came there until she stood in the porch, after night-fall, and repeated to herself, "I must see him! I will see him! I must know the truth, or die!"

This resolve had made her stronger; perhaps the wine had helped, for she was not used to it, and so the effect was all the more powerful. At any rate, she drew the hood over her face, wrapped a dark mantle about her, and went out across the garden, into the path of the wilderness, and on to the home of which she might some day, God willing, become the mistress. When she thought of this, the shadow of that other picture, which had taken away so much of her life in the path she had trod only a few hours before, came with it, and that which had been to her a proud hope was blotted out.

"I will believe it from no lips but his," she thought, looking out from the shadows at the vast gray building that held her heart in its chambers. "Oh, that I knew what was in my father's letter!"

She left the shelter of the park, and walked cautiously across the lawn, concealing her progress as best she could among flowering thickets, or a great tree that spread its branches here and there in forest grandeur.

She entered the flower-thickets under that window, the only one she cared for in all that vast building. A faint light came through it, softened by falls of lace, tinted red by the glow of silken curtains, and broken into gleams by the ivy leaves outside. Her heart gave a wild leap as she saw that the shutters were unclosed; then a great fear seized upon her; some person might be within the chamber, or lingering in the grounds. Cautiously, and holding her breath, she crept toward the masses of ivy that wound its thick foliage up to the balcony. If it stirred in the wind she shrunk back terrified. Where it cast deep shadows downward, she fancied that some man was crouching.

Still the girl crept forward, her anxiety half lost in womanly dread of being misunderstood, even by the beloved being she sought. But, for the great agony of doubt at her heart, she would have turned even then, so strong was the delicacy of her pride.

She was under the balcony now, behind the ivy, which covered her like a mantle. Up the narrow steps she crept, and crouching by the window, looked in. No one was moving. A night-lamp shed its soft moonlight on a marble console, on which some wine and fruit cast shadows. In the middle of the room stood the couch she had seen but once, shaded with rich silk and clouds of lace, snow-white and filmy, seeming to cool the air, it was so frost-like. These curtains were flung back at the pillows, and there she saw her husband in a sound sleep. She held her breath, she laid her face close to the window. Then, with impotent fingers, tried the sash. It was fastened on the inside.

What could she do? How arouse the sleeper? Impatiently she beat her hand on the glass. Still more recklessly she called her husband's name.

"Walton! Walton!"