"Ah, me! I cannot stay here all alone—all alone, and he gone! It is like sitting in a well. My feet are like ice. My tears are turning to hoar-frost. But he is colder than I am—happier, too, for he could die. One swift trouble pierced him, and he fell; but they shoot me through and through without killing. After all, I am more unhappy than the dead. If he knew this, oh, how my poor father would pity me! How he would long to take me with him, knowing that I have done wrong, but am not wicked! Oh, does he understand this? Will the angels be merciful, and let him know?"
The poor child was not weeping, but sat there in the shadows of that home from which she had sent away her best friends, terrified by the darkness, dumb and trodden down under the force of her own reproaches, which beat upon her heart as the after swell of a tempest tramples the resistless shore. It seemed as if existence for her must henceforth be a continued atonement, that could avail nothing. In all the black horizon there was, for this child, but one gleam of light, and that broke upon her like a sin.
Her husband! She had seen him for one dizzy moment; his head had rested on her bosom. While panting with weakness, and undue exertion, he had found time to whisper how dear she was to him. Yes, yes! there was one ray of hope for her yet. It had struck her father down like a flash of lightning, and the very thought of it blinded her soul. Still the light was there, though she was afraid to look upon it.
A noise at the gate, a step on the gravel, a wild bound of her wounded heart, and then it fell back aching. Hurst came in slowly; he was feeble yet, and excitement had left him pale. Ruth arose, but did not go forward to meet him. She dared not, but stood trembling from head to foot. He came forward with his arms extended.
"Ruth! My poor girl; my dear, sweet wife!"
She answered him with a great sob, and fell upon his bosom, weeping passionately. His voice had lifted her out of the solemnity of her despair. She was no longer in a tomb.
"Do not sob so, my poor darling. Am I not here?" said the young man, pressing her closer and closer to his bosom.
She clung to him desperately, still convulsed with grief.
"Be tranquil. Do compose yourself, my beloved."
"I am so lonely," she said, "and I feel so terribly wicked. Oh, Walton, we killed him. You and I. No, no; not that. I did it. No one else could."