“Oh, I don’t think he does,” said Ruth, consolingly.
“Yes, he does; I know he does,” sobbed the girl. “And I never wanted the place. I have been miserable ever since I went there.”
Ruth looked at her with new sympathy. The idea that the poor girl was in love with Jacquelin had never crossed her mind. She felt an unspeakable pity for her.
“And now they want me to marry Mr. Leech,” moaned the girl, “and I hate him—I hate him! Oh, I wish we never had had the place. I know he would not want to marry me if pa did not have it, and could not help him get the governorship. And I hate him. I hope we’ll lose the case.”
“I would not marry anyone I did not want to marry,” said Ruth.
“Oh, you don’t know,” said Virgy. “You don’t know Wash. And pa wants me to marry him too; he says he’ll be Governor. Pa loves me, but he won’t hear to my not marrying. And I’ll have to do it—unless we lose the case,” she added.
She rose and went away, leaving Ruth with a new idea in her mind.
Ruth sat still for a few moments in deep thought. Suddenly she sprang up, and, calling a servant, ordered her horse. While it was being got she seized a pencil and scribbled a few lines on a piece of paper, which she put in her pocket.
She blushed to find what an interest she took in the matter, and how warmly her feeling was enlisted on the side opposed to that which she felt she ought to espouse. And she hated herself to recognize the cause. She tried to think that it was on account of the poor wild boy, or on account of Blair Cary and Miss Thomasia; but no, she knew it was not on their account—at least, not mainly so—but on account of another.