"No; for I can guess. However the old harridan put it, you were asked to give me up; and, after all, everything turns on our answer to that. I have given you mine. What of yours?" He stepped close. "Ruth, will you give me up?"
She put out her hands as one groping, sightless, and in pain.
"Ah, you are cruel! . . . You know I cannot."
BOOK III.
THE BRIDALS.
Chapter I.
BETROTHED.
Sir Oliver rode back to Boston that same evening. Ruth had stipulated that his promise to her folk in the beach cottage still held good; that when the three years were out, and not a day before, she would return to them and make her announcement. Meanwhile, although the coast would soon be clear of her enemies and he desired to have her near, she begged off returning to Sabines. Here at Sweetwater Farm she could ride, with the large air about her and freedom to think. It was not that she shirked books and tutors. She would turn to them again, by-and-by. But at Sweetwater she could think things out, and she had great need of thinking.
He yielded. He was passionately in love and could deny her nothing.
He would ride over and pay his respects once a week.
So he took his leave, and Ruth abode with the Corderys and Miss Quiney. Disloyal though she felt it, she caught herself wishing, more than once, that her lord could have taken dear Tatty back with him to Boston.