One Sunday afternoon, toward the middle of September, Ruth was very happy. The crisis of Arthur’s illness, Dr. Letzup vouched, had passed. His delirium had subsided. He had fallen into a placid slumber. With proper care and vigilant guarding against a relapse, the doctor thought, he ought to be upon his feet within a month.
So, it was natural that Ruth’s heart should sing.
But, especially when one is a songstress by birth and training, a singing heart is apt to induce sympathetic action on the part of the voice. Ruth was seated at the window in the room adjoining Arthur’s, listening to her heart’s song, when, most likely without her being conscious of it, a soft, sweet strain of melody began to flow from her lips. It was very low and gentle, and yet, as the event proved, it was loud enough to arouse the invalid from his much needed sleep. The nurse came bustling in from the sick room, with finger raised in warning, and exclaimed in a whisper, “Hush—hush—sh—sh! You’ve gone and waked him up!”
Was it possible that she had so far forgotten herself? Oh, dear, dear! Her regret bordered upon despair. Yet, with the impetuosity that is characteristic of her sex, she could not stop there, and let bad enough alone, but must needs be guilty of still further imprudence, and march bodily into the sick man’s presence, and up close to his bedside.
He lay with open eyes looking straight ceiling-ward. But at the moment of her entrance he turned his gaze full upon her, and a happy smile lighted up his wan, wasted face. He did not attempt to speak. Neither did she. But she bent over him, and kissed him once upon the forehead, and rewarded his smile with a glance of infinite tenderness.
Then his lips moved. “Was—was it all a dream—my meeting you in Peixada’s office, and all the rest?” he whispered.
“Yes—all a dream?” she answered.
He closed his eyes and went to sleep again. When Dr. Letzup called that evening, “Better and better!” he cried. “What panacea have you been administering during my absence?”