"Look up, Ruth dear," he begged. "I want you to look now—look along the lighted way and hold my hand very tightly. Don't you think that, after all, one of your ships has come home?"
She lifted her face, wet with tears, and looked in the direction where he pointed. Arnold, who felt nothing himself but a thrill of pleasure at his new quarters, was puzzled at a certain trouble which he seemed to see in her features, a faint hopelessness of expression. She looked where he pointed but there was none of the eager expectancy of a few weeks ago.
"It is beautiful, Arnold," she murmured, "but I can't talk just now."
"I am going to leave you to get over it," he declared. "I'm off now to fetch the luggage. You won't be afraid to be left here?"
She shook her head. A certain look of relief flashed across her face.
"No, I shall not be afraid," she answered.
He wheeled the easy-chair up to the window which he had flung wide open. He placed a cushion at the back of her head and left her with a cheerful word. She heard his steps go down the corridor, the rattle of the lift as it descended. Then her lips began to tremble and the sobs to shake her shoulders. She held out her hands toward that line of lights at which he had pointed, and her fingers were clenched.
"It is because—I am like this!" she cried, half hysterically. "I don't count!"