"Not in Portsmouth! Where, then?"
"If what she writes and my eyes are to be believed she is in London, and has been here all the week. She remained with us two days, and then left, saying she was going to pay a visit to some other friends. We naturally thought, though we expected her to make a longer stay, that you were aware of it, and that the plan of her visit had been altered with your concurrence. Last night as I passed through Regent Street I saw a lady in a hansom in the company of a gentleman, and I could have sworn it was Ruth; but the cab was driving at a quick pace, and I thought I must have been mistaken. I came on here to Rose, and the poor child was in deep distress. She had received, a letter from Ruth, which she gave me to read. I do not offer any excuse for taking the letter from her; she is but a child, and is quite unfit for a responsibility which, without her consent, was imposed upon her. Here is the letter. It explains itself."
Aaron read it in silence, and with conflicting feelings.
His first thought was that Ruth had taken her fate into her own hands.
He had done his duty jealously by her in the past whatever might be his duty in the present. If, as was his fervent hope, no dishonor to her was involved in her flight--for it was no less than flight and desertion of the home in which she had been reared--if there had been a secret marriage, new contingencies of the future loomed dimly before him, contingencies in which the stern task it was his duty to perform was not so terrible in its import.
The past could never be condoned, but in his consideration of the future one figure towered above all others, the figure of his wife. If for her the suffering could be made less--if the fact of Ruth taking her course without his prompting, even in defiance of the lessons he had endeavored to inculcate, would mitigate the severity of her blow, was it not something to be grateful for?
If, he argued mentally, she and the son of Lord Storndale were married they had little to hope for from the Storndale family.
Their dependence, then, rested upon him, and he resolved that he would not fail the rash couple. His hope of an honorable, though secret, marriage was based upon his knowledge of Ruth's character. She was not given to exaggerated sentiment, he had never known her go into heroics, she possessed certain sterling qualities of strength and determination. Granted that she was led away by the glamour of wedding the son of a peer, he was convinced she would not so far forget herself as to bring shame upon herself and her connections. She was a Christian born, and she had the right to marry a Christian; by her own unprompted act she had cut the Gordian knot. That the Honorable Percy Storndale had a double motive in pursuing her was likely enough, love, Aaron hoped, being one, the fact of her reputed father being a wealthy man the other. Well, he would fulfill the young man's expectations; there was nothing in the shape of worldly atonement which he was not ready and anxious to make.
In the midst of his musings a servant presented himself with a telegram and a card. The card bore the name of The Hon. Percy Storndale, the telegram was from Mrs. Moss, in Portsmouth.
"Wait outside," Aaron said to the servant, who left the room.