The fiend at the casement saw this and smiled.
"Nay, do not let me keep you from breakfast. I love to see you eat. Many a day you and I have plucked berries together. It won't be the first time I have seen your pretty mouth red with them."
Ruth pushed the bowl of fruited milk away from her.
"I cannot eat," she said, desperately. "Your presence kills hunger and everything else. Cannot you understand how hateful it is to me? Leave that window! You block out all the pure light of heaven!"
"I will," answered Storms, with a bitter laugh. "You shall have all the light you want," and, resting his hand on the window-sill, he leaped into the room.
"Audacious!" cried Ruth, starting up, while a flash of anger shot across her face as scarlet sunset stains a snow bank.
"While girls are so tantalizingly coy, men will be audacious," said Storms, attempting to draw her toward him. "And they like us all the better for it. Shilly-shallying won't do when a man is in earnest."
"Leave me! Leave the house!" commanded Ruth, drawing back from his approach.
Any one who had seen the girl then would have thought her a fit chatelaine for the stately "Old Rest," or any other proud mansion of England.
"Not yet. Not till I have told you where you stand, and what danger lies in a storm of rage like this. It makes you beautiful enough for a queen, but you must not dare to practise your grand airs on me. I won't have them! Do you understand that, my lass? I won't have them! Come here and kiss me. That is what I mean to have."