She did not go on. She sat staring at what she had written. She read it over; she said it aloud. It surged in upon her, into shut places. She sat looking at it, frightened at what it was doing. Sat looking at it after it was all blurred by tears—looking down at the words she herself had written—"You must find your way back to life."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ruth was very quiet through the next week. Stuart was preoccupied with the plans he was making for going to Montana; when he talked with her it was of that, of arrangements to be made for it, and his own absorption apparently kept him from taking note of her being more quiet than usual, or different. It was all working out very well. He had found a renter for the ranch, the prospects for the venture in Montana were good. They were to move within a month. And one night in late April when he came home from town he handed Ruth a long envelope, with a laughing, "Better late than never." Then he was soon deep in some papers.
Ruth was sorting a box of things; there were many things to be gone through preparatory to moving. She had put the paper announcing his divorce aside without comment; but she loitered over what she was doing. She was watching Stuart, thinking about him.
She was thinking with satisfaction that he looked well. He had thrown off the trouble that had brought about their departure from Freeport twelve years before. He was growing rather stout; his fair hair had gone somewhat gray and his face was lined, he had not the look of a young man. But he looked strong, alert. His new hopes had given him vigor, a new buoyancy. She sat there thinking of the years she had lived with him, of the wonder and the happiness she had known through him, of the hard things they had faced together. Her voice was gentle as she replied to his inquiry about what day of the month it was.
"I think," he said, "that we can get off by the fifteenth, don't you, Ruth?"
"Perhaps." Her voice shook a little, but he was following his own thoughts and did not notice. After a little he came and sat across the table from her. "And, Ruth, about this getting married business—" He broke off with a laugh. "Seems absurd, doesn't it?"
She nodded, fumbling with the things in the box, her head bent over them.
"Well, I was thinking we'd better stop somewhere along the way and attend to it. Can't do it here—don't want to there."