She sat beside her father during the hour that the nurse had to be relieved. Very strongly, wonderfully, she had a feeling that her father knew she was there, that he wanted her there. In the strange quiet of that hour she seemed to come close to him, as if things holding them apart while he was of life had fallen away now that he no longer was life-bound. It was very real to her. It was communion. Things she could not have expressed seemed to be flowing out to him, and things he could not have understood seemed reaching him now. It was as if she was going with him right up to the border—a long way past the things of life that drove them apart. The nurse, coming back to resume duty, was arrested, moved, by Ruth's face. She spoke gently in thanking her, her own face softened. Flora Copeland, meeting Ruth in the hall, paused, somehow held, and then, quite forgetful of the manner she was going to maintain toward Ruth, impulsively called after her: "Are you perfectly comfortable in your room, Ruth? Don't you—shan't I bring in one of the big easy chairs?"
Ruth said no, she liked her own little chair, but she said it very gently, understanding; she had again that feeling of being taken in, the feeling that warmed her heart.
She went in her room and sat quietly in her little chair; and what had been a pent up agony in her heart flowed out in open sorrowing: for her mother, who was not there to sit in her room with her; for her father, who was dying. But it was releasing sorrowing, the sorrowing that makes one one with the world, drawing one into the whole life of human feeling, the opened heart that brings one closer to all opened hearts. It was the sadness that softens; such sadness as finds its own healing in enriched feeling. It made her feel very near her father and mother; she loved them; she felt that they loved her. She had hurt them—terribly hurt them; but it all seemed beyond that now; they understood; and she was Ruth and they loved her. It was as if the way had been cleared between her and them. She did not feel shut in alone.
Ted hesitated when he came to her door a little later, drew back before the tender light of her illumined face. It did not seem a time to break in on her. But she held out her hand with a little welcoming gesture and, though strangely subdued, smiled lovingly at him as she said, "Come on in, Ted."
Something that the boy felt in her mood made him scowl anew at the thing he had to tell her. He went over to the window, his back to her, and was snapping his finger against the pane. "Well," he said at last, gruffly, "Cy gets in today. Just had a wire."
Ruth drew back, as one who has left exposed a place that can be hurt draws back when hurt threatens. Ted felt it—that retreating within herself, and said roughly: "Much anybody cares! Between you and me, I don't think father would care so very much, either."
"Ted!" she remonstrated in elder sister fashion.
"Cy's got a hard heart, Ruth," he said with a sudden gravity that came strangely through his youthfulness.
Ruth did not reply; she did not want to say what she felt about Cy's heart. But after a moment the domestic side of it turned itself to her. "Will Louise come with him, Ted?"
"No," he answered shortly.