"Your road is my road, where you are I will be--and when you stop I will stop."
"Ruth!" exclaimed Porphyrius involuntarily.
"Child, what has come over you!" said Donatus. "What do you want with me?"
"Nothing," said the child, for in truth she herself did not know.
"But you cannot wander about the world alone in this fashion," said Donatus.
"Alone! I shall be with you," answered the girl.
"But think, what will your mother say?"
The child's eyes filled with tears. "My mother is dead," said she.
"And your father?"
"He is dead too."