Watching at the window she saw Gordon coming, his broad feet measuring a giant’s stride, his wide shoulders and magnificent head high with unconscious strength.
She wondered if he would stop in the parlour as a visitor or come to her room as was his custom, and a sharp pain cut her with the thought of their changed relationship.
He stopped in the hall, asked the maid to send the children down at once, and stepped into the parlour.
He felt a strange embarrassment in his own home. This house he had bought for Ruth soon after their arrival in New York. It had just been built in the wide-open space of the cliffs on Washington Heights. The Pilgrim Church’s members were long since scattered over every quarter of the city, and, by arranging his study in the church, he was able to have his home so far removed from the noise of the downtown district. He had thus fulfilled Ruth’s passionate desire for a home of her own within their moderate means. He recalled now with tender melancholy how happy they had been decorating this little nest, and how far from his wildest dream had been such an ending of it all.
But he had come with important news, and he hoped her pain would be softened by its announcement.
The children entered with shouts of delight. First one would hug him, and then the other, and then both would try at the same time.
Lucy put her hands on his smooth ruddy cheeks and kissed his lips and eyes with the quaintest imitation of her mother’s trick of gesture.
“Where have you been, Papa? We thought you were never coming? Mama said you were gone for a trip and would come to-day, but”—her voice sank—“she’s been crying, and crying, and we don’t know what’s the matter. I’m so glad you’ve come.”
“Well, you and brother run upstairs to play and tell her Papa wishes to see her.”
The children left and Ruth came down at once.