“You have been my mainstay,” he said. “I could not have done my work without you. I could not have lived through it without you.”
Extravagant, unwise, impulsive, he did not realize the depth of the meaning of his words. But she did. Her eyes met his and fell. Her cheeks paled. Her hands lay limp in his. It was but a moment. Some gentlemanly instinct moved him, some high-born spirit of noblesse oblige, some God-given sense of what a pure-hearted man owes to himself. He released her hands and rose from his chair.
“I must leave you,” he said, “and go to the workmen’s meeting at Carpenter’s Hall. It is already past time.” And he added: “Will you not wait and see Mrs. Farrar? You can help her. She is very despondent and wretched. Give her some cheering thought. I will ask her to come in.”
He left the room, and in it he left his visitor alone.
Five minutes is not a long time within which to grasp one’s soul and draw it back from the brink of disaster. But Ruth Tracy had always been quick and courageous in meeting emergencies, and she was quick and courageous to-day. It was at the end of this five minutes that Mrs. Farrar entered the library. One who had known her six months before would hardly have recognized her now. Worn with her household tasks, harassed by the troubles of the time, sick at heart to the verge of prostration, she looked it all. Her face was gray, her cheeks were sunken, her lips were colorless, deep shadows rested under her eyes inflamed by much weeping.
“Mr. Farrar told me,” she said, “that you wished to see me.”
“Only to say to you,” replied Ruth, remembering her instructions, “that better times are coming; that the clouds will soon roll by.”
“You only say that to try to comfort me,” was the response. “You do not really believe it in your heart.”
“But things cannot go on this way forever, Mrs. Farrar. Even if the climax has not yet been reached it must come soon. April is almost here, and warmer weather. Under sunny skies the men will find more work to do; there will be less suffering in their families.”
“I am not thinking about the men and their families, Miss Tracy. I am thinking about myself, and my children, and Mr. Farrar.”