Alvar, like some others of his name, was a person of slow perceptions, and was apt to be absorbed in one idea at a time. He did not guess that while he paid Virginia all the courtesy that he thought her due she longed for a far closer union of spirits. He was proud of being Cheriton’s chief dependence during the tedious recovery that none of the others could bear to think incomplete, and to find that his tact and consideration made him a welcome companion when Jack’s ponderous discussions were too great a fatigue. But he would not endure thanks, and after the outburst with which he had received his father’s nobody proffered them. Not one of the others, full of anger with Ruth and of anxiety for Cheriton, could have abstained from fretting him with one word on the subject, as Alvar did all that afternoon and evening. But his mind was free to think of nothing else.
As for Ruth, the moment that should have been full of unalloyed bliss for her, the moment when Rupert told her that concealment was no longer necessary, was distracted by the terror of discovery.
Rupert had to tell her that the sale of a farm, effected on unusually advantageous terms, had made the declaration of his wishes possible to him, and he was now ready to present himself before her guardians and ask their consent to a regular engagement. Ruth was about to go back to her grandmother, and all might now be well. Ruth did not know how to be glad; she could not tell how deeply the Lesters might blame her. Her one hope was in Cheriton’s generosity, and to him at least she must tell the whole truth.
“To-morrow I shall come and see you,” he said gravely, as he wished her good-night, and she managed to give him an assenting glance, but he knew that she was treating him ill, and tormented himself with a thousand fancies—that his illness had changed him, that something during their separation had changed her. He said nothing, but the next day started alone for Elderthwaite.
It was a bright morning, with a clear blue sky. Cheriton passed into the wood and through the flickering shadows of the larches. He did not spend the time of his walk in forming any plans as to how he should meet Ruth; he set his mind on the one fact that a meeting was certain. But perhaps the brightness of the morning influenced his mood, for as he came out on to the bit of bare hill-side that divided the wood from the Elderthwaite property, a certain happiness of anticipation possessed him—circumstances might account for the discomfort of the preceding day, Ruth’s eyes might once more meet his own, her voice once more tell him that she loved him.
The bit of fell was divided from Mr Seyton’s plantation by a low stone wall, mossy, and overgrown with clumps of harebells and parsley fern, and half smothered by the tall brackens and brambles that grew on either side of it. Beyond were a few stunted, ill-grown oak-trees, with a wild undergrowth of hazel.
As Cheriton came across the soft, smooth turf of the hill-side, he became aware that some one was sitting on the wall beside the wide gap that led into the plantation, and he quickened his steps with a thrill of hope as he recognised Ruth. She stood up as he approached and waited for him, as he exclaimed eagerly,—
“This is too good of you!”
“Oh, no!” said Ruth, and began to cry.
Her eyes were red already, and with her curly hair less deftly arranged than usual, and her little black hat pushed back from her face, she had an air indescribably childish and forlorn.