“‘Where’s Ruth?’ said Mrs. Pennistan as we sat down.
“‘She’ll be in presently, likely,’ said Amos, who was an easy-going man.
“Her mother grumbled.
“‘She shouldn’t be late for breakfast.’
“‘Come, come, mother,’ said Amos, ‘don’t be hard on the girl on her wedding-eve,’ and as he winked at me I hid my face in my vast cup.
“Then Leslie Dymock burst in, with a letter in his hand, and at the sight of his face, and of that suddenly ominous little piece of white paper, the Pennistans started up and tragedy rushed like a hurricane into the pleasant room.
“He said,—
“‘She’s gone, read her letter,’ and thrust it into her father’s hand.
“I wish I could reproduce for you the effect of that letter which Amos read aloud; it was quite short, and said, ‘Leslie. I am going away because I can’t do you the injustice of becoming your wife. Tell father and mother that I am doing this because I think it is right. I am not trying to write more because it is all so difficult, and there is a great deal more than they will ever know, and I don’t think I understand everything myself. Try to forgive me. I am, your miserable Ruth.’
“I cannot tell you,” said Malory, who, as I could see, was profoundly shaken by the vividness of his recollection, “how moved I was by the confusion and distress of those strangely disquieting words. I could not reconcile them at all with the picture I had formed of two kindred natures rushing at last together in a pre-ordained and elemental union. I rose to get away from the family hubbub, for I wanted to be by myself, but on the way I stopped and looked at the mice in their cage among the red geraniums. They were waltzing frantically, as though impelled by a sinister influence from which there was no escape.”