"Poor child! dear little girl!"
But the girl cried on, and on, as though she would never stop, her whole slight frame shaken with the force of her sorrow.
Across the hall Ruth could hear the steady tread of her son's footsteps as he paced back and forth, fighting his battle alone. Should his mother go and try to comfort him? But this motherless one was clinging to her.
"Maybelle," she said at last, "is it a hopeless grief? Is there no One who can help?"
Then the girl made a desperate effort to control herself. She reached for Ruth's hand and gripped it in her young, strong one. Then, after another moment, she spoke:—
"Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you; I did not mean to cry at all; I said that I would not; but it was all so new, so—O mamma, mamma!"
The head, which had been raised a little, went down again; and the exceeding bitterness of that last wailing cry of renunciation Ruth never forgot. She had grace to be thankful that the mother was not there to hear it.
But the violence of the storm was over, at least so far as its outward exhibition was concerned. In a few minutes more the girl spoke quietly enough.
"He is very, very good. I did not know that any—just human being could be so good. And he spoke tenderly all the time of—of my mother. I could feel in his voice the sound of his great love for her. My poor, poor mother!"
Later, after much had been said and there had been silence between them for a few minutes, she spoke suddenly:—