She had been so carefully trained, and so early taught the difference between right and wrong, that she could not look upon her prize without being reminded of the temptation to which she had so suddenly yielded, and the equivocation to which she had resorted in order to hide it.
Then her promise to Gerald troubled her greatly. She felt almost sure, though she could not prove it, that he was not keeping his word. He came down in the morning very late, looking pale and haggard, scarcely tasted his breakfast, and hurried away to the office; and when he returned in the evening either pooh-poohed his mother's anxious inquiries about his health, or answered her curtly and snappishly.
Everything was going wrong, Ruth said to herself continually.
She had done very wrong, had taken a false step, and she felt truly enough that no power on earth could alter that fact. And having once started on a downward path it seemed of no use to try to stop and to do better in future: she must give up all her struggles to do right, and go down, down. It requires a very hardened sinner to forget the past, and begin again as if nothing had happened; or a very humble Christian to start again, after repeated failures, in dependence upon God. Ruth's self-sufficiency was gone, and she sadly admitted to herself that she was no better than Julia and the other girls. She had given up reading her Bible now, thinking its sweet messages were not for her, a wayward, erring one, and would scarcely dare to pray even for the safety and well-being of the dear ones at home. Too broken-spirited to make resolutions which she felt herself to be too weak to carry out, afraid to open her Bible and read therein her own condemnation, and feeling that her sin had raised a barrier, which she was unable to remove, between herself and God, the New Year began in sorrow and sadness. "Your sins have separated between you and your God." These words were continually in her mind, and the remembrance of the peace and joy which she had once felt in thinking of the things belonging to the kingdom only made her more miserable.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SO AS BY FIRE.
"Hark! what was that?" exclaimed Ruth one night, starting up in bed.
She had been half-dozing, half-dreaming, when she was startled by a slight noise downstairs, as if something had fallen.
"I believe it is Gerald. I will go down at once, and tell him that as he has not kept his word I am no longer bound by my promise."