She shook her head; she dared not trust herself to speak in the light of his tender eyes. He hastily opened the door, and bowing, closed it quickly behind him.
Chapter XXIV
The sun shone with its usual winter favoritism upon San Francisco this Thursday morning. After the rain the air felt as exhilarating as a day in spring. Young girls tripped forth “in their figures,” as the French have it; and even the matrons unfastened their wraps under the genial wooing of sunbeams.
Everything was quiet about the Levice mansion. Neither Ruth nor her mother felt inclined to talk; so when Mrs. Levice took up her position in her husband’s room, Ruth wandered downstairs. The silence seemed vocal with her fears.
“So I tell ye’s two,” remarked the cook as her young mistress passed from the kitchen, “that darter and father is more than kin, they is soul-kin, if ye know what that means; an’ the boss’s girl do love him more’n seven times seven children which such a man-angel should ‘a’ had.” For the “boss” was to those who served him “little lower than the angels;” and their prayers the night before had held an eloquent appeal for his welfare.
Ruth, with her face against the window, watched in sickening anxiety. She knew they were not to be expected for some time, but it was better to stand here than in the fear-haunted background.
Suddenly and almost miraculously, it seemed to her, a carriage stood before the gate. She flew to the door, and as she opened it leaned for one second blindly against the wall.
“Tell my mother they have come,” she gasped to the maid, who had entered the hall.
Then she looked out. Two men were carrying one between them up the walk. As they came nearer, she saw how it was. That bundled-up figure was her father’s; that emaciated, dark, furrowed face was her father’s; but as they carefully helped him up the steps, and the loud, painful, panting breaths came to her, were they her father’s too? No need, Ruth, to rush forward and vainly implore some power to tear from yourself the respiration withheld from him. Air, air! So, man, so; one step more and then relief. Ah!