Our human loves partake always of the nature of speculations. We have no security for our capital (which, fortunately, is seldom so large as we suppose), but the love of Nature is a sure investment, which she repays a thousand-fold, which she repays most prodigally when the heart is bankrupt and full of bitterness, as Ruth's heart was that day. For in Nature, as Wordsworth says, "there is no bitterness," that worst sting of human grief. And as Ruth walked among the quiet fields, and up the yellow aisles of the autumn glades to Arleigh, Nature spoke of peace to her—not of joy or of happiness as in old days, for she never lies as human comforters do, and these had gone out of her life; but of the peace that duty steadfastly adhered to will bring at last—the peace that after much turmoil will come in the end to those who, amid a Babel of louder tongues, hear and obey the low-pitched voices of conscience and of principle.
For it never occurred to Ruth for a moment to throw over Dare and marry Charles. She had given her word to Dare, and her word was her bond. It was as much a matter of being true to herself as to him. It was very simple. There were no two ways about it in her mind. The idea of breaking off her engagement was not to be thought of. It would be dishonorable.
We often think that if we had been placed in the same difficulties which we see overwhelm others, we could have got out of them. Just so; we might have squeezed, or wriggled, or crept out of a position from which another who would not stoop could not have escaped. People are differently constituted. Most persons with common-sense can sink their principles temporarily at a pinch; but others there are who go through life prisoners on parole to their sense of honor or duty. If escape takes the form of a temptation, they do not escape. And Ruth, walking with bent head beneath the swaying trees, dreamed of no escape.
She soon reached the little lodge, the rusty gates of which barred the grass-grown drive to the shuttered, tenantless old house at a little distance. It was a small gray stone house of many gables, and low lines of windows, that if inhabited would have possessed but little charm, but which in its deserted state had a certain pathetic interest. The place had been to let for years, but no one had taken it; no one was likely to take it in the disrepair which was now fast sliding into ruin.
The garden-beds were almost grown over with weeds, but blots of nasturtium color showed here and there among the ragged green, and a Virginia-creeper had done its gorgeous red-and-yellow best to cheer the gray stone walls. But the place had a dreary appearance even in the present sunshine; and after looking at it for a moment, Ruth went in-doors to see her old nurse. After sitting with her, and reading the usual favorite chapter in the big Bible, and answering the usual question of "Any news of Master Raymond?" in the usual way, Ruth got up to go, and the old woman asked her if she wanted the drawing-block which she had left with her some time ago with an unfinished sketch on it of the stables. She got it out, and Ruth looked at it. It was a slight sketch of an octagonal building with wide arches all round it, roofing in a paved path, on which, in days gone by, it had evidently been the pernicious custom to exercise the horses, whose stalls and loose boxes formed the centre of the building. The stable had a certain quaintness, and the sketch was at that delightful point when no random stroke has as yet falsified the promise that a finished drawing, however clever, so seldom fulfils.
Ruth took it up, and looked out of the window. The sun was blazing out, ashamed of his absence for so long. She might as well finish it now. She was glad to be out of the way of meeting any one, especially the shooters, whose guns she had heard in the nearer Slumberleigh coverts several times that afternoon. The Arleigh woods she knew were to be kept till later in the month. She took her block and paint-box, and picking her way along the choked gravel walk and down the side drive to the stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress, with a reckless expenditure of hair.
As Ruth stopped a moment, bored but courteous, to return its well-meant attentions by friction behind the ears, she heard a slight crackling among the wood in the stable. Rats abounded in the place, and she was just about to recall the cat to its professional duties, when her own attention was also distracted. She started violently, and grasped the drawing-block in both hands.
Clear over the gravel, muffled but still distinct across the long wet grass, she could hear a firm step coming. Then it rang out sharply on the stone pavement. A tall man came suddenly round the corner, under the archway, and stood before her. It was Charles.
The yellow cat, which had a leaning towards the aristocracy, left Ruth, and, picking its way daintily over the round stones towards him, rubbed off some more of its wardrobe against his heather shooting-stockings.
"I hardly think it is worth while to say anything except the truth," said Charles at last. "I have followed you here."