Ruth returned home and began to lock up the house. When, presently, she tapped at her brother's door and looked in, he had lighted the room and was reading his telegram.
"All right over the way," she said, and to hurry on over the grim untruth repeated briefly Minnie's story. "Good-night. You go—to-morrow? Well, you'll make haste back."
She left him, but later returned.
"Leonard." At the slightly opened door she thrust in her Bible, with a finger on the line, "My soul, wait thou only upon God."
"Thank you," said the brother. "Good-night. I'm afraid we've kept Him waiting on us."
XVI
MUST GIVE YOU UP
Over on the Winslow side of the way, Isabel, having tarried in the cottage to explain to her frightened mother how perfectly natural it was that Arthur, after his tramp across the meadows, should have made a circuit to the upper side of the old mill pool, went pensively home. Presently, holding a lamp, she stood in the door between her room and Arthur's, lifted the light above her head, and, shading her brows, called his name. Hidden in the gloom, silent and motionless, he stared for a moment on the beautiful apparition, and then moved without a sound into the beams of the lamp, a picture of misery and desperation.
"Why in the dark?" amiably inquired the wife.