Her eyes still avoided him. She looked over the garden, toward the cloisters, anywhere except at his face. When she spoke again, however, there was more sympathy in her voice. "But that doesn't matter. It has always been my intention to remain here."
"You don't really mean it?"
"Indeed I do! It is no sudden decision. I am very happy here."
He turned partly away, and said nothing. She glanced at his face, and its expression would have softened the Rock of Ages. There was no doubt of his sincerity; nor of his silent agony beneath the blow he had just received. No words were uttered. He simply stood and gazed—at nothing.
Across the garden, from the open windows of the central building, came the sound of a harp. It came faintly, a gentle, plaintive melody, all in harmony with the murmur of the fountain, the fading glories in the west—and an aching heart. The voice of the harp may have had its effect on Ruth. As she looked up at the face of Cyrus, with its misery, she began to feel the old-time sympathy of their childhood; the long forgotten sense of responsibility for his welfare when she was mother and sister to him, with the woman's love he had missed as a boy; also his chosen pal;—his adored and trusted playmate. She felt again the yearning to keep him out of trouble. His distress brought an almost equal suffering to herself. But when he turned his eyes again to her face she was—apparently—still studying the cloisters.
"Is this really the end?" He spoke in a lower, unsteady voice. "Do you really mean that our boy and girl days, our old affection, all those memories—and you don't know how much they have meant to me—always, always—through everything—you don't really mean—all that is—is just—nothing? That I am no more to you than anybody else?"
The heart in Ruth's little body beat so loud—it seemed to her—that a man could hear it. She tried hard to blink away the moisture in her eyes as they rested on various objects, but not on the face of Cyrus. "You will get over it, Drowsy. I feel it, in another way, as much as you do. Please don't talk about it. And you really must go. A man's presence here—and alone with me—would be very hard to explain. Please go—for my sake!"
Cyrus closed his eyes and drew a hand, slowly, across his forehead. Then, instead of the protest she expected, he straightened up in a sudden agitation, laid his hand on her arm and pointed toward the convent buildings.
The voice of a woman, singing, came floating across the silent garden.
"What is that?" he whispered.