Ruth blushed and dropped the fish forgotten on the grass. She said shortly:
“I’m going to spend the day with Mrs. Whiting.”
“Oh, then, don’t say a word to her about this. She’s an awful good neighbour. I wouldn’t for the world have her think that I––”
“Why, it doesn’t matter at all,” said Ruth, as she turned toward the road. “You only said what people were saying.”
“But I wouldn’t for anything,” the woman called nervously after her, “have her think that–– And what’ll I do with this?”
“Eat it,” said Ruth over her shoulder. The prize for which she had fought so desperately in the early morning meant nothing to her now.
Jeffrey Whiting did not come home that night. Through the long twilight of one of the longest days of the year, Ruth sat reading in the old place on the hill, where Jeffrey would be sure to find her. Suddenly, when it was full dark, she knew that he would not come.
She did not try to argue with herself. She did not fight back the nervous feeling that something had happened. She was sure that she had been all day expecting it. When the moon came up over the hill and the long purple shadows of the 84 elm trees on the crest came stalking down in the white light, she went miserably into the house and up to the little room they had fitted up for her in the loft of her own home.
She cried herself into a wearied, troubled sleep. But with the elasticity of youth and health she was awake at the first hint of morning, and the cloud of the night had passed.
She dressed and hurried down into the yard where Norman Apgarth was just stirring about with his milk pails. She was glad to face daylight and action. A man had put his trust in her before all others. She was eager to answer to his faith.