"And you will say nothing, as yet. Hush!" whispered Ruth, looking wildly over his shoulder. "I hear something."
"It is nothing."
"How foolish I am! Of course it is nothing. We are quite alone; but every moment it seems as if I must hear my father's step on the threshold, as I heard it that night. It frightened me, then; now I could see him without dread, because I think that he knows how it is."
"Before many days we shall be able to see the whole world without dread," answered Hurst, very tenderly. "Till then, good-night."
"Good-night, Walton, good-night. You see that I can smile, now. I have lost my father, but the bitterness of sorrow is all gone. I had other troubles and some fears that seemed important while he was alive; but now I can hardly remember them. Great floods swallow up everything in their way. I have but just come out of the storm where it seemed as if I was wrecked forever. So I have no little troubles, now. Good-by. I shall dream after this. Good-by."
CHAPTER LX.
LOVE AND HATE.
RUTH did sleep long and profoundly. A stone had been rolled from her heart, and the solemn rest of subsiding grief fell upon her. Early in the morning she arose and went down-stairs, feeling, for the first time for days, a keen want of food. There was no fire in the house: gray ashes on the hearth, a few blackened embers, and nothing more. The house was very lonely to her that bright morning, for the shutters had kept it in gloomy twilight since the funeral, and she had not heeded the semi-darkness, having so much of it in her own soul.
"He has forgiven me. He knows," she thought, with a deep, deep sigh, "there is no reason why his child should cower in darkness now, and he loved the light."