Ruth looked into the leaping mass of flame, her face very grave. Her voice was very low, hardly above a whisper.
“I think the hatred in which Karl von Schäde passed into the next world has found a physical instrument through which to manifest here,” she said.
“And that instrument is—good God!” North’s voice was sharp with horror. “It isn’t possible—the whole thing is ridiculous. But go on. I heard to-day. That has happened twice before you say. You suspected then, of course. Is there anything else?”
And even as he spoke, things, little things, that Violet had said and done, came back to him. The shrinking of the dogs, his own words—“She is not herself”—took on new meaning.
“There is a blight upon the farm since she came,” said Ruth. “The joy and peace are not here as they were. Perhaps you would not feel it, coming so seldom.”
“Yes, I noticed it. But Violet has not made for peace of late. I thought it was just her being here.”
“The children don’t care to come as they did, and there have been quarrels. The creatures are not so tame. Nothing is doing quite so well. These are little things, but taken all together they make a big whole.”
“Anyway it’s not fair on you,” said North shortly. “The place is too good to spoil, and you——”
In that moment, the supreme selfishness with which he and his had used her for their own benefit, as some impersonal creature, that could not be weary or worried or overtaxed, came home to him. He felt suddenly ashamed.
Ruth smiled at him. “No,” she said. “The farm, I, you, are all just instruments too, as she has become, poor child. Only we are instruments on the other side.” Her voice dropped, and he leant forward to catch the words. “Dick Carey’s instruments; we cannot fail him.”