But the climax, the real heart of his whole two days, was after Sunday dinner when he went out to call upon Ruth Macdonald. And it was characteristic of his whole reticent nature, and the way he had been brought up, that he did not tell his mother where he was going. It had never occurred to him to tell her his movements when they did not directly concern her, and she had never brought herself up to ask him. It is the habit of some women, and many mothers.
A great embarrassment fell upon him as he entered the grounds of the Macdonald place, and when he stood before the plate-glass doors waiting for an answer to his ring he would have turned and fled if he had not promised to come.
It was perhaps not an accident that Ruth let him in herself and took him to a big quiet library with wide-open windows overlooking the lawn, and heavy curtains shutting them in from the rest of the house, where, to his great amazement, he could feel at once at ease with her and talk to her just as he had done in her letters and his own.
Somehow it was like having a lifetime dream suddenly fulfilled to be sitting this way in pleasant converse with her, watching the lights and shadows of expression flit across her sensitive face, and knowing that the light in her eyes was for him. It seemed incredible, but she evidently enjoyed talking to him. Afterwards he thought about it as if their souls had been calling to one another across infinite space, things that neither of them could quite hear, and now they were within hailing distance.
He had thanked her for the sweater and other things, and they had talked a little about the old school days and how life changed people, when he happened to glance out of the window near him and saw a man in officer’s uniform approaching. He stopped short in the midst of a sentence and rose, his face set, his eyes still on the rapidly approaching soldiers:
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I shall have to go. It’s been wonderful to come, but I must go at once. Perhaps you’ll let me go out this way. It is a shorter cut. Thank you for everything, and perhaps if there’s ever another time—I’d like to come again——”
“Oh, please don’t go yet!” she said putting out her hand in protest. But he grasped the hand with a quick impulsive grip and with a hasty: “I’m sorry, but I must!” he opened the glass door to the side piazza and was gone.
In much bewilderment and distress Ruth watched him stride away toward the hedge and disappear. Then she turned to the front window and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Wainwright just mounting the front steps. What did it all mean?