"That was all? Did you not give him my own words?"
"No, father! Another person was with him. I had no power to speak."
The old man groaned, and gave an impatient grip at the bed-clothes.
"I will get up. I will go myself!"
With the words on his lips, the old man half-rose, and fell back upon his pillow with a gasp of pain.
"Oh, father! do not try to move. It hurts you so!" said Ruth, bending over him.
"But he must be told. That young man threatens us. He must be told! So rash—so young. He might—Oh!"
"Father! father! You are killing yourself!"
"No, no, child! I must not do that. Never was a poor wounded man's life of so much consequence as mine is now."
Ruth bent over him, and he saw that she was silently crying.