"No!" she said. "You should not dare."
Then the girl thrust her trembling hand down to the bosom her head had so lately rested upon, and leaning forward, held her breath, while Lady Rose eagerly searched her features in the moonlight.
"Is—is there nothing?" she whispered.
Ruth could not answer. Her hand shook so fearfully, that its sense of touch was overwhelmed.
"Oh, speak to me!"
"Hush! I shake so! I shake so!"
Lady Rose bent her head and waited. At last a deep, long breath broke from Ruth, and a flash of fire shot from her eyes.
"Give me your hand; I dare not trust myself," she whispered.
Seizing the hand which lay helplessly in Lady Rose's lap, she pressed it over the heart her own had been searching, and fixed her eager eyes on the lady's face for an answer.
As a faint fire kindles slowly, that fair face brightened till it shone like a lily in the moonlight. As Ruth looked, she saw a scarcely perceptible smile stealing over it. Then the lips parted, and a heavy sigh broke through.