“Ruth Pinkney—or I'm a Chinaman!”
The stranger lifted his eyes wearily. Hollow circles were around their orbits; haggard lines were in his checks. But it was Ruth.
He took the glass, and drained it at a single draught. “Yes,” he said absently, “Ruth Pinkney,” and fixed his eyes again on the distant rosy crest.
“On your way up home?” suggested the bar-keeper, following the direction of Ruth's eyes.
“Perhaps.”
“Been upon a pasear, hain't yer? Been havin' a little tear round Sacramento,—seein' the sights?”
Ruth smiled bitterly. “Yes.”
The bar-keeper lingered, ostentatiously wiping a glass. But Ruth again became abstracted in the mountain, and the barkeeper turned away.
How pure and clear that summit looked to him! how restful and steadfast with serenity and calm! how unlike his own feverish, dusty, travel-worn self! A week had elapsed since he had last looked upon it,—a week of disappointment, of anxious fears, of doubts, of wild imaginings, of utter helplessness. In his hopeless quest of the missing Mornie, he had, in fancy, seen this serene eminence haunting his remorseful, passion-stricken soul. And now, without a clew to guide him to her unknown hiding-place, he was back again, to face the brother whom he had deceived, with only the confession of his own weakness. Hard as it was to lose forever the fierce, reproachful glances of the woman he loved, it was still harder, to a man of Ruth's temperament, to look again upon the face of the brother he feared. A hand laid upon his shoulder startled him. It was the bar-keeper.
“If it's a fair question, Ruth Pinkney, I'd like to ask ye how long ye kalkilate to hang around the Ferry to-day.”