"Yes—yes." And she rose from the table at once, and went upstairs to get her hat and jacket.
"What, ready so soon?" he questioned, when she appeared again.
"I may be too late as it is," she answered, in a voice that she scarcely recognised as her own.
"I will go with you," he said, "for it will be dark when you return."
For awhile they walked rapidly and in silence, but when the village came in sight they slackened their pace a little.
"It is hard to give up hope," Ralph said, as if speaking to himself. "He was so healthy and so strong, and he has lived a life so temperate and so clean that he ought to pull through anything."
"Does the doctor say there is no hope?"
"He has none himself."
William was listening with every sense alert. He knew by some subtle instinct, some spiritual telepathy, that Ruth was near. He caught her whisper in the hall, he knew her footstep when she came quickly up the stairs, and the beating of his heart seemed to get beyond all bounds.
He was too weak to raise himself in bed, but his eyes were strained toward the door.