To Edith's inquiry as to Ruth's whereabouts, a maid explained that Miss Ruth had left word that she was going to walk out to the Country Club, and would return in time for supper at seven. I went upstairs to my room. A feeling of despair possessed me. I sat down and gazed out of the window. A maid knocked lightly as I sat staring and came in with a letter.
"Miss Ruth told me to wait until you were alone and then to give you this," she explained.
I thanked her and she departed. I locked the door, then tore open Ruth's note to me and read it.
"Dear Lucy," it said. "I cannot help but overhear some of the conversation. Obviously, Tom is shouting so I may get the benefit of his remarks without effort. I must get out of this horrible place. How can I endure to meet the disapproval and bitterness and hatred—yes, hatred—when they come filing out upon me from that room across the hall. How can I sit down to supper with them all, ask for bread—for water? How can I keep up this farce of polite speech? I can't.
"You are in favor of my going away somewhere. I can hear you urging them. Well, then, if you are, let me go now—tonight. I can't go back with you tomorrow. Even though I am hard and heartless, don't ask me to run the risk of seeing Bob by mistake just now. I can't see him now. I can't. I won't stay here at Edith's. I won't go with Tom. This isn't the Middle Ages. Then if ultimately I am to go away, alone somewhere, let me go immediately. After I've gone the responsibility of giving me permission will be lifted from Tom's shoulders. Don't you see? You can argue with him to better advantage if the step has been taken.
"I shan't be blindly running away. I've been considering a change in my plans for so long that I've been enquiring. I know of a position I can get in New York, and right off. I wrote about it last week. I heard of it through the Suffrage League. It's a position in the office there in New York. I would have explained all this to Tom if he had been decent, but he wasn't. He is narrow and prejudiced. Oh, Lucy, help me to escape. I've got fifteen dollars, of Tom's and Edith's, and I shall keep it, too! They owe me a debt instead of I, them. That's the way I feel. But fifteen dollars is not enough to start to New York with. There's a train at 6.20 and another at 8.15. I am going down to the station now, this minute, and wait for you to come down there with more money and help me off. If you get out of that room before six, I could take the earlier train. If not, then the 8.15. I will wait for you in the ladies' waiting-room where the couches are. If you think my going suddenly this way is out of the question, then I'll simply turn around and come back with you to the house here, and grin and bear the situation somehow. I'll have to. So meet me anyhow. Don't tell any one where I am. Just stroll out and we'll pretend we've been to the Country Club.
"I know that I've been horrid to you all my life, critical and pharisaic. You can pay me back for it now. You can refuse to help me if you want to. I shan't blame you. But, oh, dear, let me go away alone, just for a little while anyway. Let nature try and heal.
"I have my bag and toilet articles. Money is all I want—money and perhaps just one person in my family to wish me well.
"Ruth."
I glanced at the clock It was just quarter of six. There was no opportunity of laying this question on the table and waiting for the clearing light of morning to help me make a wise decision. This was an occasion when a woman's intuition must be relied upon. As I stood there with Ruth's letter in my hand, swift and sure was the conviction that came to me. I must help Ruth get away. She would surely escape sometime from the kind of bondage Tom was planning to place her under. If not tonight, or next week, then a month hence. Was it not better for her to go, even though suddenly and shockingly, with the God-speed and the trust of some one in her own family?