Chase came up, and took his wife's hand protectingly. "You may as well tell her."
"It is a stroke of paralysis," explained the doctor, gravely.
"But she'll know me?" cried Ruth in an agony of tears.
"She may. You can go up if you like."
But the mother saw nothing, heard nothing on earth again. She might live for years. But she did not know her own child.
Chase came at last, and took his wife away.
"Oh, be good to me, Horace, or I shall die! I think I am dying now," she added in sudden terror.
She clung to him in alarm. His immense kindness was now her refuge.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN spite of all there was to see that afternoon, Dolly Franklin had chosen to remain at home; she sat alone in the drawing-room, adding silken rows to her stocking of the moment. Wherever Ruth was, that was now Dolly's home; since Mrs. Franklin's death, two years before, Dolly had lived with her sister. The mother had survived her son but a month. Her soul seemed to have departed with the first stroke of the benumbing malady; there was nothing but the breathing left. At the end of a few weeks, even the breathing ceased. Since then, L'Hommedieu had been closed, save for a short time each spring. Horace Chase had bought a cottage at Newport, and his wife and Dolly had divided their time between Newport and New York. This winter, however, Chase had reopened his Florida house, the old Worth place, at St. Augustine; for Ruth's health appeared to be growing delicate; at least she had a dread of the cold, of the icy winds, and the snow.