She stood perfectly still, all the blood seeming to recede from and leave her faint with the strange solemnity of the thought! What if she had this evening been preaching the gospel to Ruth! What if the words of hers should lead Ruth to think, and to hunt, and to find this light that those who were not blind—if there were any such—succeeded in finding! What if, as a result of this, she should go to heaven! and what if it were true that there was to be a judgment, and they two should meet, and then and there she should realize that it was because of this evening's talk that Ruth stood in glory on the other side of the great gulf of separation! What kind of a feeling would that be?
"Oh, if I only knew," she said aloud, sitting suddenly down on a fallen log, "if I only knew that any of these things were so! or if I could only get to imagining that they were, I would take them up and have the comfort out of them that some of these people seem to get, for I have so little comfort in my life. It can not be that it is all a farce, such as Ruth's horrid resolve would lead one to think; that is not the way that Dr. Vincent feels about it; it is not the way that Dr. Pierce preached about it this morning; it is not the way that man Bliss sings about it. There is more to it than that. My father had more than that. If he could only look down to-night and tell me whether it is so, whether he is safe and well and perfectly happy. Oh, it seems to me if I could only be sure, sure beyond a doubt that God did give an eternal heaven to my father, I could love him forever for doing that, even though there is a hell and I go to it."
Within the tent they were having talk that would seem to amount to very little. Even Eurie appeared to be subdued, and to have almost nothing to say. Ruth was roused from the half stupor of astonishment into which Marion's unexpected words had thrown her by hearing Flossy say, "Oh, Ruth, I forgot to tell you something; Mrs. Smythe stopped at the door on Saturday evening before you came home; her party leave for Saratoga to-morrow morning, and she wanted to know whether any of us would go with them."
"Did you tell her I was going?" Ruth asked, quickly. It was utterly distasteful to her to think of having Mrs. Smythe's company. She did not stop to analyze her feelings; she simply shrank from contact with Mrs. Smythe and from others who were sure to be of her stamp.
"No," Flossy said, "I did not know what you had decided upon; I said it was possible that you might want to go, but some one joined us just then and the conversation changed: I did not think of it again."
"I am glad you didn't," Ruth said, emphatically. "I don't want her society. I won't go in the morning if I am to be bored with that party; I would rather wait a week."
"They are going in the morning train," Eurie said; "I heard that tall man who sometimes leads the singing say so. He said there was quite a little party to go, among them a party from Clyde, who were en route for Saratoga. That is them, you know; nearly all of them are from Clyde. 'Oh, yes,' the other man said; 'we must expect that. Of course there is a froth to all these things that must evaporate toward Saratoga, or some other resort. There is a class of mind that Chautauqua is too much for.' Think of that, Ruthie, to be considered nothing but froth that is to evaporate!"
"Nonsense!" Ruth said, sharply. She seemed to consider that an unanswerable argument, and in a sense it is. Nevertheless Eurie's words had their effect; she began to wish that letter unwritten, and to wish that she had not said so much about Saratoga, and to wish that there was some quiet way of changing her plans.
In fact, an utter distaste for Saratoga seemed suddenly to have come upon her. Conversation palled after this; Marion came in, and the four made ready for the night in almost absolute silence. The next thing that occurred was sufficiently startling in its nature to arouse them all. It was one of those sudden, careless movements that this life of ours is full of, taking only a moment of time, and involving consequences that reached away beyond time, and death, and resurrection.
"Eurie," Ruth had said, "where is your head ache bottle that you boast so much of? I believe I am going to have a sick headache."