“Don’t worry about me, Father,” she said, pulling up his furred collar; “indeed, I am well and happy. If you could believe me, perhaps you would love me as much as you used to.”
“As much! My child, I never loved you better than now; remember that. I think I have forgotten everybody else in you.”
“Don’t, dear! it makes me feel miserable to think I should cause you a moment’s uneasiness. Won’t you believe that everything is as I wish it?”
“If I could, I should have to lose the memory of the last four months. Well, try your best to forgive me, child.”
“Unless you hate me, don’t hurt me with that thought again. I forgive you? I, who am the cause of it all?”
He kissed her tear-filled eyes tenderly, and turned with a sign to her mother.
They watched to the last his loved face at the window, Ruth with a sad smile and a loving wave of her handkerchief.
Over at the mole it is not a bad place to witness tragedies. Pathos holds the upper hand, and the welcomes are sometimes as heart-rending as the leave-takings. A woman stood on the ferry with a blank, working face down which the tears fell heedlessly; a man, her husband, turned from her, drew his hat down over his eyes, and stalked off toward the train without a backward glance. Parting is a figure of death in this respect,—that only those who are left need mourn; the others have something new beyond.