Hilda's years were not many, but her intuition was sure. She did not demand explanations, did not command Ruth to stop crying and tell what ailed her, but sat down quietly on the bed and stroked the sobbing girl's hair, crooning over her softly. "There!… There!…"
Gradually the tenseness, the dry, racking, tearing quality of Ruth's sobs, softened, ameliorated. Presently she was crying, quietly, pitifully…. Hilda breathed with relief. She did not know that for an hour Ruth had sat on the edge of her bed, still, tearless, staring blindly before her—her soul drying up and burning within her for lack of tears. She had been unable to cry. She had uttered no sound until Hilda's voice came in to her. Then she had thrown herself prone in that paroxysm of wrenching sobs….
"There!… There!…" Hilda crooned.
Ruth's hand crept out fumblingly, found Hilda's dress, and clutched it.
Hilda laid her warm hand over Ruth's cold fingers—and waited.
"He's—gone," Ruth sobbed, presently.
"Never mind, honey…. Never mind, now."
Ruth mumbled incoherently. After a time she raised herself on her arms and crouched beside Hilda, who put her arms around her and held her close, as she would have held a troubled child.
"You'll—despise me," Ruth whispered.
"I guess not." Hilda pressed Ruth's slenderness against her more robust body reassuringly. "I don't despise folks, as a rule…. Want to talk now?"
She saw that the time for speech had come.