NORSTON'S REST.

BY

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

AUTHOR of "BERTHA'S ENGAGEMENT," "FASHION AND FAMINE," "MABEL'S MISTAKE,"
"THE OLD COUNTESS," "RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY," "THE REIGNING BELLE,"
"LORD HOPE'S CHOICE," "MARRIED IN HASTE," "THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS,"
"WIVES AND WIDOWS; OR, THE BROKEN LIFE," "MARY DERWENT,"
"THE OLD HOMESTEAD," "A NOBLE WOMAN," "THE CURSE OF GOLD,"
"THE GOLD BRICK," "DOUBLY FALSE," "PALACES AND PRISONS,"
"THE HEIRESS," "SILENT STRUGGLES," "REJECTED WIFE,"
"BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE," "WIFE'S SECRET."

Why did he love her? Ask the passing breeze
Why it has left the lilies in their bloom—
The great white blossoms of magnolia trees,
And jasmine flowers, that kindle up the gloom
Of Southern woods, where the vast live oak grows,
And mocking birds sing love notes to the rose.
Ask why it turned from these and lowly flew
To kiss the purple violets in their dew.

Yes, ask the breezes;—love is like to them
In the free poising of his restless wing.
Sometimes he searches for a priceless gem,
But often takes a pebble from the spring.
To his veiled eyes the humble pebble shines
Bright as a jewel from Golconda's mines.
Expect no answer why love chooses so—
His reasons are as vague as winds that blow.

PHILADELPHIA;
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
306 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.

Each work is complete in one volume, 12mo.

NORSTON'S REST.
BERTHA'S ENGAGEMENT.
BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE; or, Bought With A Price.
LORD HOPE'S CHOICE; or, More Secrets Than One.
THE OLD COUNTESS. Sequel to Lord Hope's Choice.
A NOBLE WOMAN; or, A Gulf Between Them.
PALACES AND PRISONS; or, The Prisoner of the Bastile.
WIVES AND WIDOWS; or, The Broken Life.
RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY; or, Married By Mistake.
FASHION AND FAMINE.
THE CURSE OF GOLD; or, The Bound Girl and Wife's Trials.
MABEL'S MISTAKE; or, The Lost Jewels.
SILENT STRUGGLES; or, Barbara Stafford.
THE WIFE'S SECRET; or, Gillian.
THE HEIRESS; or, The Gipsy's Legacy.
THE REJECTED WIFE; or, The Ruling Passion.
THE OLD HOMESTEAD; or, The Pet From the Poor House.
DOUBLY FALSE; or, Alike and Not Alike.
THE REIGNING BELLE.
MARRIED IN HASTE.
THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS.
MARY DERWENT.
THE GOLD BRICK.

Price of each, $1.75 in Cloth; or $1.50 in Paper Cover.

Above books are for sale by all Booksellers. Copies of any one or all of the above books, will be sent to any one, to any place, postage pre-paid, on receipt of their price by the Publishers,

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,

306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

TO
MRS. GEN. WILLIAM LESLIE CAZNEAU,
OF
KEITH HALL, JAMAICA, W. I.
ONE OF
THE OLDEST AND DEAREST FRIENDS THAT I HAVE,
THIS BOOK
IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

ANN S. STEPHENS.

New York, May 31, 1877.

CONTENTS.

NORSTON'S REST.

CHAPTER I.

GATHERING OF THE HUNT.

IN the highest grounds of a park, almost an estate in itself, stood one of those noble old mansions that are so interwoven with the history of mother England, that their architecture alone is a record of national stability and ever-increasing civilization, written out in the strength of stone and the beauty of sculpture. This building, however grand in historical associations, was more especially the monument of one proud race, the Hursts of "Norston's Rest."

Generation after generation the Hursts had succeeded in unbroken descent to "The Rest" and its vast estates since the first foundation stone was laid, and that was so long ago that its present incumbent, Sir Noel Hurst, would have smiled in derision had the Queen offered to exchange his title for that of a modern duke.

Sir Noel might well be proud of his residence, which, like its owners, had kept pace with the progress of art and the discoveries of science known to the passing generations; for each had contributed something to its gradual construction, since the first rough tower was built with the drawbridge and battlements of feudal times, to the present imposing structure, where sheets of plate glass took the place of arrow slits, and the lace-work of sculpture was frozen into stone upon its walls.

This glorious old park, like the mansion it surrounded, brought much of its antique beauty from the dead ages. Druid stones were to be found beneath its hoary old oaks. Its outer verge was wild as an American forest, and there one small lake of deep and inky blackness scarcely felt a gleam of sunshine from month to month. But nearer the old mansion this wilderness was turned into an Eden: lawns of velvet grass—groves where the sunshine shone through the bolls of the trees, turning the grass under them to gold—lakes starred half the summer with the snow of water-lilies—rose gardens that gave a rare sweetness to the passing wind—shadowy bridle-paths and crystal streams spanned by stone bridges—all might be seen or guessed at from the broad terrace that fronted the mansion.

Here all was light gayety and pleasant confusion. Sir Noel had many guests in the house, and they were all out upon the terrace, forming a picture of English life such as no country on earth can exhibit with equal perfection.

It was the first day of the hunt, and the gay inmates of the house were out in the bright freshness of the morning, prepared for a glorious run with the hounds. The gentlemen brilliant in scarlet, the ladies half rivalling them in masculine hats, but softening the effect with gossamer veils wound scarf-like around them, and a graceful flow of dark drapery.

Beneath, breaking up the gravel of the carriage road with many an impatient hoof, was a crowd of grooms holding slender-limbed horses, whose coats shone like satin, when the sun touched them, while their hoofs smote the gravel like the restless feet of gipsy dancing-girls when a thrill of music stirs the blood.

Further on keepers were scattered about, some looking admiringly at the brilliant picture before them, others holding back fiery young dogs, wild for a run with their companions of the kennel.

Gradually the light laughter and cheerful badinage passing on the terrace died into the silence of expectation. The party was evidently incomplete. Sir Noel was there in his usual dress, speaking with polite composure, but casting an anxious look now and then into the open doors of the hall.

Some fair lady was evidently waited for who was to ride the chestnut horse drawn up nearest the steps, where he was tossing his head with an impatience that half lifted the groom from his feet when he attempted to restrain the reckless action.

It was the Lady Rose, a distant relative of Sir Noel's, who had been her guardian from childhood, and now delighted to consider her mistress of "The Rest," a position he fondly hoped she might fill for life.

Sir Noel came forward as she appeared, and for a moment the two stood together, contrasted by years, but alike in the embodiment of patrician elegance. She in the bloom and loveliness of her youth: he in that exquisite refinement which had been his inheritance through a long line of cultivated and honorable ancestry. Turning from Sir Noel, Lady Rose apologized to his guests, and with a winning smile, besought their forgiveness for her tardy appearance.

That moment a young man, who had been giving some orders to the grooms, came up the steps and approached the lady.

"Have you become impatient?" she said, blushing a little. "I am so grieved!"

The young man smiled, as he gave her a fitting answer. Then you saw at once the relationship that he held with Sir Noel. It was evident, not only in the finely cut features, but in the dignified quietude of manner that marked them both.

"Mack has no idea of good breeding, and is getting fiercely impatient," he said, glancing down at the chestnut horse.

Lady Rose cast a bright smile upon her guests.

"Ladies, do not let me keep you waiting."

There was a general movement toward the steps, but the young lady turned to Sir Noel again.

"Dear uncle, I wish you were going. I remember you in hunting-dress when I was a little girl."

"But I have grown old since then," answered the baronet, with a faint smile.

"This is my first day, and I shall be almost afraid without you," she pleaded.

The baronet smiled, shook his head, and glanced at his son.

"You will have younger and better care," he said.

The young man understood this as a request that he should take especial care of his cousin, for such the lady was in a remote degree, and for an instant seemed to hesitate. Lady Rose saw this, and, with a hot flush on her face, ran down the steps.

Young Hurst was by her side in a second, but she sprang to the saddle, scarcely touching his proffered hand with her foot; then wheeled the chestnut on one side, and waited for the rest to mount.

Down came the party, filling the broad stairway with shifting colors, chatting, laughing, and occasionally giving out little affected screams, as one fell short of the saddle, or endangered her seat by a too vigorous leap; but all this only added glee to the occasion, and a gayer party than that never left the portal of "Norston's Rest" even in the good old hawking days of long ago.

Young Hurst took his place by the side of Lady Rose, and was about to lead the cavalcade down the broad avenue, which swept through more than a mile of the park before it reached the principal entrance gate, but instantly there arose a clamor of feminine opposition.

"Not that way! It would lead them in the wrong direction; let them take a run through the park. They would have rougher riding than that before the day was over."

Young Hurst seemed disturbed by this proposal; he even ventured to expostulate with his father's guests. "The park was rough in places," he said, "and the side entrance narrow for so large a party."

His argument was answered by a merry laugh. The ladies turned their horses defiantly, and a cloud of red coats followed them. Away to the right the whole cavalcade took its way where the sun poured its golden streams on the turf under the trees, or scattered itself among the leaves of the hoary old oaks that in places grew dangerously close together.

As they drew toward that portion of the park known as "The Wilderness," a wonderfully pretty picture arrested the swift progress of the party, and the whole cavalcade moved more slowly as it came opposite a small rustic cottage of stone, old, moss-grown, and picturesque, wherever its hoary walls could be seen, through masses of ivy and climbing roses. One oriel window was discovered through the white jasmine that clustered around it, and the verbenas, heliotrope, and scarlet geraniums that crept beneath it from the ground.

The vast park, in whose deepest and coolest verdure this little dwelling stood, was like a world in itself; but through the noble old trees the stately mansion-house they had left could be seen in glimpses from this more humble dwelling. This stood on the edge of a ravine, left in all its ferny wildness, through which a stream of crystal water leaped and sparkled, and sent back soft liquid murmurs, as it flowed down in shadows, or leaped in bright cascades to a lake that lay in the wildest and lowest depths of the park, as yet invisible. Young Hurst had urged his horse forward when he came in sight of this wood-nest, and an angry flush swept over his face when the party slackened its speed to a walk, and for an instant stopped altogether, as it came in front of the rustic porch; for there, as if startled by the sudden rush of hoofs, stood a young girl, framed in by the ivy and jasmine. She had one foot on the threshold of the door, and was looking back over her left shoulder, as if held in that charming attitude by a sudden impulse of curiosity while she was retreating. Two or three exclamations broke from the gentlemen, who were taken by surprise by this beautiful picture; for in her pose, in the dark frightened eyes, and the warm coloring of face and garments, the girl was a wonder of picturesque beauty.

"Who is she? Where did the pretty gipsy come from?" questioned one of the gentlemen nearest to Hurst. "Upon my word, she hardly seems real."

"She is the daughter of my father's gardener," said Hurst, lifting his hunting-cap as the girl's eyes sought him out in her sudden panic. "Shall we ride on, gentlemen? Our presence seems to disturb her."

"Is it true? Is the pretty thing only a gardener's child?" questioned one of the ladies, drawing close to Lady Rose.

"She certainly is only that," was the low, almost forced answer. "We have always thought her pretty, and she is certainly good."

Hurst heard this and turned a grateful look upon the fair girl. She saw it, and for an instant the color left her face. Then she touched her horse, and the cavalcade dashed after her through the depths of the park and into the open country, where the hounds were to meet, all feeling in a different way that there was some mystery in the living picture they had admired.

CHAPTER II.

THE HILL-SIDE HOUSE.

AT the grand entrance of the park a young man had been waiting with a desperate determination to take some part in the hunt, though he was well aware that his presence in such company must be an intrusion; for he was the only son of a farmer on the estate, and had just received education enough to unfit him for usefulness in his own sphere of life and render his presumption intolerable to those above him.

He had not ventured on a full hunting-suit, but wore the cap, boots, and gloves with an air that should, he was determined, distinguish him from any of the grooms, and perhaps admit him into the outskirts of the hunt, if audacity could accomplish nothing more. The horse, which he sat with some uneasiness, had been purchased for the occasion unknown to his father, who had intrusted the selection of a farm-horse to his judgment, and was quite ignorant that the beast had been taken out for any other purpose. As the young man rode this horse up and down in sight of the gate, a groom came through and answered, when questioned about the hunting party, that it had started half an hour before across the park.

With an oath at the time he had lost, young Storms put the horse to his speed and was soon in the open country, but the animal, though a good one, was no match for the full-blooded action for which Sir Noel's stables were famous. After riding across the country for an hour, as it seemed to him, wondering what course the hunt would take, the horse suddenly lifted his ears, gathered up his limbs, and, before his rider could guide the movement, leaped a low wall into a corn-field and was scouring toward some broken land beyond, when a flash of darkness shot athwart his path, and the fox, routed from his covert, dashed across the field. After it came the dogs, red-mouthed with yelping, clearing the hedges with scattered leaps, and darting swiftly, as shot arrows, in the track of the fox.

After them came the hunt, storming across the field, over walls and ditches, and winding up the long slope of the hill, scattering rays of scarlet flame as it went.

The rush of the dogs, the desperate speed of the fox, maddened Storms, as the first bay of the hounds had inspired his horse. He plunged on like the rest, eager and cruel as the hounds. For once he would be in at the death.

Storms had done some rough riding in preparation for this event, but he lacked the cool courage that aids a horse in a swift race or dangerous leap. In wild excitement he wheeled and made a dash at the wall. The horse took his leap bravely, but a ditch lay on the other side, and he fell short, hurling his rider among the weeds and brambles that had concealed its depths.

The young man was stunned by the sudden shock, and lay for a time motionless among the weeds that had probably saved his life, but he gathered himself up at last and looked around. The hunt was just sweeping over the crest of the hill, and half-way up its face his horse was following, true to its instincts.

The young man felt too giddy for anger, and for a time his mind was confused; still no absolute injury had happened to him, and after gathering up his cap and dusting his garments, he would have been quite ready to mount again, and saw his horse go over the hill with an oath which might have been changed to blows had the beast been within his control.

The scenery around him was in some respects familiar, but he could not recognize it from that standpoint or determine how far he was from home. In order to make himself sure of this he mounted the hill, from whence he could command a view of the country.

A lovely prospect broke upon the young man when he paused to survey it: below him lay a broad valley, composed of a fine expanse of forest and farming land, through which a considerable stream sparkled and wound and sent its huddling crystal through green hollows and shady places till its course was lost in the distance.

This river Storms knew well. It passed through the "Norston's Rest" estate, but that was so broad and covered so many miles in extent that his position was still in doubt.

Storms was not a man to occupy himself with scenery for its own sake, however beautiful or grand; so, after a hurried glance around him, he proceeded to mount higher up the hill. The declivity where he stood sank down to the river so gradually that several houses were built on its slope, and most of the land was under some sort of cultivation. The nearest of these houses was a low structure, old and dilapidated, on which the sunshine was lying with pleasant brightness. If nature had not been so bountiful to this lovely spot, the house might have been set down as absolutely poverty-stricken, but, years before, some training hand had so guided nature in behalf of the beautiful, that Time, in destroying, made it also picturesque.

Storms observed this without any great interest, but he had attained some idea of thrift on his father's farm, and saw, with contempt, that no sign of plenty, or even comfort, was discernible about the place. It was a broken picture—nothing more; but an artist would have longed to sketch the old place, for a giant walnut-tree flung its great canopy of branches over the roof, and, farther down the slope of the hill, a moss-grown old apple orchard, whose gnarled limbs and quivering leaves would have driven him wild, had yielded up its autumnal fruit.

There was a low, wide porch in front of the house, over which vines of scant leafiness and bristling with dead twigs crept toward the thatched roof. The walls about the house were broken in many places, and left in gaps, through which currant and gooseberry-bushes wound themselves outward in green masses.

At the end of this enclosure there had been some attempts at gardening; but plenty of weeds were springing up side by side with the vegetables, and both were richly overtopped in irregular spaces by clusters of thyme that had found root at random among the general neglect.

All this might have given joy to a man of æsthetic taste, but Storms would never have looked at it a second time but for some object that he saw flitting through the garden, that brightened everything around, as a tropical bird kindles up the dense foliage of a jungle.

It was a young girl, with a good deal of scarlet in her dress and a silk handkerchief of many colors knotted about her neck. She was bareheaded, and the sunshine striking down on her abundant black hair, sifted a gleam of purple through it, rich beyond description.

The young man was bewildered by this sudden appearance, and stood a while gazing upon it. Then his face flushed and a vivid light came into his eyes.

"By Jove, there's something worth looking after here," he said. "The creature moves like a leopard, and jumps—goodness, how she does jump across the beds! I must get a nearer view."

From that distance it was difficult to judge accurately of the girl's face; but there was no mistaking the easy sway of her movements or the picturesque contrast of her warmly hued garments with the leafy shadows around her.

She was evidently a reckless gardener, for half the time she leaped directly into the vegetable beds, treading down the shoots that were tinging them with departing greenness. All at once she dropped on her knees and began to pull up some beets, from which she vigorously shook the clinging soil.

When she arose with her handful of green leaves and roots, Storms became conscious that the old house, with all its proofs of neglect, made an attractive picture.

"I will ask for a cup of milk or a drink of water," he thought; "that will give me a good look at her face."

The old house was half-way down the hill, along which the young man strolled. The gate scraped a semicircle in the earth as he opened it and made for the porch, from which he could see a bare hallway and a vista through the back door, which stood open.

A gleam of color which now and then fluttered in view led the young man on. The boards creaked under his tread as he went down the hall and stood upon the threshold of the door, watching the girl as she stooped by the well, holding her garments back with one hand while she dashed her vegetables up and down in a pail of water which she had just poured from the bucket.

She looked up suddenly, and something that lay in those large black eyes, the mobile mouth, the bright expression fascinated him. She was picturesque, and just a little awkward the moment she became conscious that a stranger was so near her.

"I have had a long walk, and am thirsty. Will you give me a glass of water or a cup of milk?" he said, moving toward the well. The girl dropped her beets into the pail, and stood gazing on her strange visitor, half shy, half belligerent. At last she spoke:

"The cow has not been milked this morning," she said, "and yesterday's cream has not been skimmed; but here is water in the bucket, and I will bring a cup from the house."

"Thank you."

She was gone in an instant, and came back with a tumbler of thick, greenish glass in her hand, which she dipped into the bucket and drew out with the water sparkling like diamonds as it overflowed the glass.

As the young man drank, a cow that had been pasturing in the orchard thrust its head over the wall and lowed piteously.

The young man smiled as he took the glass from his lips.

"I think the cow yonder would be much happier if I had a cup of her milk," he said.

"Well, if you must have it!" answered the girl, dashing some water left in the glass on the stones around the well, and, with a careless toss of the head, she went into the kitchen and came out carrying a pail in one hand and an earthen mug in the other.

"Shall I go with you?" questioned Storms, holding out his hand for the pail, but she swung it out of his reach and went down the empty hall, laughing the encouragement she would not give in words.

The young man followed her. In pushing open the gate their hands met. The girl started, and a hot blush swept her face.

"You should be a gentleman," she said, regarding his dress with some curiosity.

Storms blushed crimson. The suggestion flattered him intensely.

"Why should you think so?" he questioned.

"Because working people in these parts never dress like that, gloves and all!" she answered, surveying him from head to foot with evident admiration. "A whole crowd of them—ladies too—went by just now with a swarm of yelping dogs ahead, and a little fox, scared half to death, running for its life. Are you one of them?"

"I might have been, only the brute of a horse made a bolt and left me behind," said Storms, with rising anger.

"A horse! oh, yes, I saw one limping over the hill after the rest went out of sight. Poor fellow, he was lamed."

"I hope so, the brute, for he has given me a long walk home, and no end of trouble after, I dare say; but if it hadn't happened, I should have missed seeing you."

Again the girl blushed, but carried her confusion off with a toss of the head.

That moment the cow, impatient for notice, came up to her, lowing softly, and dropping foamy grass from her mouth. Usually it had been the girl's habit to plant her foot upon the grass and sit upon the heel as she milked; but all at once she became ashamed of this rough method, and looked around for something to sit upon. The garden wall had broken loose in places. The young man brought a fragment of rock from it and dropped it on the ground.

As she seated herself, slanting the pail down before her, he took up the mug from the grass where she had dropped it.

"I must have my pay first," he said, stooping down, and holding the mug to be filled.

The soft sound of the milk, as it frothed into the mug, was overpowered by the laughter of the girl, who saucily turned the white stream on his hand.

He laughed also, and shook off the drops, while the foam trembled on his lips; then he bent down again, asking for more. Thus, with his eyes meeting hers if she looked up, and his breath floating across her cheek, this girl went on with her task, wondering in her heart why work could all at once have become so pleasant.

"There," she said at last, starting up from her hard seat, "that is done. Now she may go back to her pasture."

As if she understood the words, that mild cow walked slowly away, cropping a tuft of violets that grew by the stone fence as she went.

Storms reached out his hand for the pail.

"Shall I help you?"

"No, thank you," she answered, turning her black eyes, full of mischief, upon him. "I can do very well without."

If this was intended for a rebuff, the young man would not understand it as such. He followed her into the house, without waiting for an invitation, and remained there for more than an hour, chatting familiarly with the girl, whose rude good-humor had particular charms for him.

In a crafty but careless way he questioned her of her history and domestic life. She answered him freely enough; but there was not much to learn. Her father had come into that part of the country when she was quite a child. A mother?—Of course she had a mother once, but that was before she could remember—long before the old man came to that house, which she had kept for him from that day out.

Storms looked around the room in which they sat, and a faint, derisive smile came across his lips, for there was dust on everything, and venerable cobwebs hung in the corners.

"Wonderful housekeeping it must have been!" he thought, while the girl went on.

Did her father own the house? Of course he did; she had seen the lease—a long one—which gave it to him for almost nothing, with her own eyes. Still, that did not make him very rich, and he had to go out to day's work for a living when farmers wanted help, and not having much strength to give, got poor wages, and sometimes no work at all.

"Was her father an old man?"

Yes, old enough to be her grandfather. Good as gold, too, for he never scolded her, and was sure to make believe he wasn't hungry when she had no supper ready after a hard day's work, which was often enough, for if there was anything she hated it was washing dishes and setting out tables.

"Isn't that rather hard on your father?" questioned the young man.

Judith answered, with a heavy shrug of the shoulders, that she did not think it was, for he never did more than heave a little sigh, then take up the Bible or some other book, if he could find one, and read till bedtime.

"A book! Does he read much?" asked Storms, really surprised.

Read! Judith rather thought he did! Nothing seemed to pacify him when he was tired and hungry like a book. Where did he get the books? Why, folks were always lending them to him; especially the clergyman. She herself might never have learned to read or write if it had not been for her father; and then, what would she have done all alone in the old house from morning till night? What did she read? Why, everything that she could lay her hands on. The girls about had plenty of paper-covered books, and she always managed to get hold of them somehow. It was when she had promised to read them through in no time that her father had to go without his supper oftenest.

Storms asked to look at some of these volumes, if she had any on hand.

After a little hesitation, Judith went into the kitchen and brought a soiled novel, with half the paper cover torn off, which had been hidden under the bread-tray.

The smile deepened on the young man's lips as he turned over the dingy pages and read a passage here and there. After a while he lifted his eyes, full of sinister light, to hers, and asked if her father knew that she read these books so much.

The girl laughed, and said that she wasn't likely to tell him, when he thought she was busy with the tracts and history books that he left for her. Then she gave a little start, and looked anxiously out of the window, saying, with awkward hesitation, that her father was working for the clergyman that day, and might come home early.

Storms arose at once. He had no wish to extend the pleasant acquaintance he was making to the old man, if he was "good as gold."

As he passed into the lane, the cow, that was daintily cropping the grass on one side, lifted her head and followed him with her great, earnest eyes, that seemed to question his presence there as if she had been human.

He took a step out of the way and patted her on the neck, at which she tossed her head and wheeled up a bank, evidently not liking the caresses of a stranger.

CHAPTER III.

WAITING AND WATCHING.

THAT night, long after the party at "Norston's Rest" had returned from the hunt, John Storms, a farmer on the estate, who stood at the door of his house chafing and annoyed by the disappearance of his son with the new horse that had just been purchased, heard an unequal tramping of hoofs and a strange sound of pain from the neighboring stable-yard. Taking a lantern, for it was after dark, he went out and was startled by the limping approach of the poor hunter, that had found its way home and was wandering about the enclosure with the bridle dragging under his feet, and empty stirrups swinging from the torn saddle.

The old man had been made sullen and angry enough by the unauthorized disappearance of his son with the new purchase; but when he saw the empty saddle and disabled condition of the lamed animal, a sudden panic seized upon him. He hurried into the house with strange pallor on his sunburned face and a tremor of the knees, which made him glad to drop into a chair when he reached the kitchen, where his wife was moving about her work with the same feverish restlessness that had ended so painfully with him.

The woman, startled by his appearance, came up to him in subdued agitation.

"It is only that the new beast has come home lamed, and with the saddle empty," he said, in reply to her look. "I must go to the village, or find some of the grooms. Keep up a good heart, dame, till I come back."

"Is he hurt? Oh, John! is there any sign that our lad has come to harm?" questioned the poor woman, shaking from head to foot, as she supported herself by the back of the chair from which her husband started in haste to be off.

"I will soon know—I will soon know"—was his answer. "God help us!"

"God help us!" repeated the woman, dropping helplessly down into the chair, as her husband put on his hat and went hurriedly through the door; and there she sat trembling until another sound of pain, that seemed mournfully human, reached her from the stable-yard.

This appeal to her compassion divided somewhat the agony of her fears, and strengthened her for kindly exertion. "Poor beast," she thought, "no one is taking care of him."

She looked around; no aid was near. The tired farm-hands had gone to bed, or wandered off to the village. She was rather glad of that. It was something that she could appease her own anxiety by giving help to anything in distress. Taking up the lantern, which was still alight, she went toward the stable, and there limping out of the darkness met the wounded horse. An active housewife like Mrs. Storms required no help in relieving the animal of its trappings. She unbuckled the girth, took off the saddle, and passed her hand gently down the fore leg, that shrunk and quivered even under that slight touch.

"It is a sprain, and a bad one," she thought, leading the poor beast into his stall, where he lay down wearily; "but no bones are broken. Oh, if he could only speak now and tell me if my lad is alive—or—or—Oh, my God, have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me!"

Here the poor woman leaned her shoulder against the side of the stall, and a burning moisture broke into her eyes, filling them with pain; for this woman was given to endurance, and, with such, weeping is seldom a relief; but looking downward at the pathetic and almost human appeal in the great wild eyes of the wounded horse, tears partaking of compassion as well as grief swelled into drops and ran down her face in comforting abundance. So, patting the poor beast on his soiled neck, she went to the house again and heating some decoction of leaves that she gathered from under the garden wall, came back with her lantern and bathed the swollen limb until the horse laid his head upon the straw, and bore the slackened pain with patience.

It was a pity that some other work of mercy did not present itself to assuage the suspense that was becoming almost unendurable to a woman waiting to know of the life or death of her only son. She could not sit down in her accustomed place and wait, but turned from the threshold heart-sick, and, still holding the lantern, wandered up and down a lane that ran half a mile before it reached the highway—up and down until it seemed to her as if unnumbered hours had passed since she had seen her husband go forth to learn whether she was a childless mother or not. "Would he never come?"

She grew weary at last, and went into the house, looking older by ten years than she had done before that shock came, and there she sat, perfectly still, gazing into the fire. Once or twice she turned her eyes drearily on a wicker basketful of work, where a sock, she had been darning before her husband came in, lay uppermost, with a threaded darning needle thrust through the heel, but it seemed ages since she had laid the work down, and she had no will to take it up; for the thought that her son might never need the sock again pierced her like a knife.

Turning from the agony of this thought she would fasten her sad eyes on the smouldering coals as they crumbled into ashes, starting and shivering when some chance noise outside awoke new anguish of expectation.

The sound she dared not listen for came at last. A man's footstep, slow and heavy, turned from the lane and paused at the kitchen door.

She did not move, she could not breathe, but sat there mute and still, waiting.

The door opened, and John Storms entered the kitchen where his wife sat. She was afraid to look on his face, and kept her eyes on the fire, shivering inwardly. He came across the room and laid his hand on her shoulder. Then she gave a start, and looked in her husband's face: it was sullenly dark.

"He is not dead?" she cried out; seeing more anger than grief in the wrathful eyes. "My son is not dead?"

"No, not dead; keep your mind easy about that; but he and I will have a reckoning afore the day breaks, and one he shall remember to his dying day. So I warn you keep out of it for this time: I mean to be master now."

Here Storms seated himself in an empty chair near the fire, and stretching both feet out on the hearth, thrust a hand into each pocket of his corduroy dress. With the inconsistency of a rough nature, he had allowed the anguish and fright that had seized upon him with the first idea of his son's danger to harden into bitterness and wrath against the young man, the moment he learned that all his apprehensions had been groundless. Even the pale, pitiful face of his wife had no softening effect upon him.

"He is alive—but you say nothing more. Tell me is our son maimed—is he hurt?"

"Hurt! He deserves to have his neck broken. I tell you the lad is getting beyond our management—wandering about after the gentry up yonder as if he belonged with them; going after the hunt and almost getting his neck broke on the new horse that fell short of his leap at a wall with a ditch on t'other side, that the best hunter in Sir Noel's stables couldn't'a' cleared."

"Oh, father! you heard that; but was he much hurt? Why didn't they bring him home at once?" cried the mother, with a fever of dread in her eyes.

"Hurt! not half so much as he deserves to be," answered the man, roughly. "Why, that horse may be laid up for a month; besides, at his best, there isn't a day's farm-work under his shining hide. The lad cheated us in the buying of him, a hunter past his prime—that is what has been put upon me, and serves me right for trusting him."

"But you will not tell me, is our Richard hurt?" cried the woman, in a voice naturally mild, but now sharp with anxiety.

"Hurt! not he. Only made a laughing-stock for the grooms and whippers-in who saw him cast head over heels into a ditch, and farther on in the day trudging home afoot."

The woman fell back in her chair with a deep sigh of relief.

"Then he was not hurt. Oh, father! why could ye not tell me this at first?"

"Because ye are aye so foolish o'er the lad, cosseting a strapping grown-up loon as if he was a baby; that is what'll be his ruin in the end."

"He is our only son," pleaded the mother.

"Aye, and thankful I am that we have no more of the same kind."

"Oh, father!"

"There, there; don't anger me, woman. The things I heard down yonder have put me about more than a bit. The lad will be coming home, and a good sound rating he shall have."

Here farmer Storms thrust his feet still farther out on the hearth, and sat watching the fire with a sullen frown growing darker and darker on his face.

As the time wore on, Mrs. Storms saw that he became more and more irritated. His hands worked restlessly in his pockets, and, from time to time, he cast dark looks at the door.

These signs of ill humor made the woman anxious.

"It is going on to twelve," she said, looking at the brazen face of an old upright clock that stood in a corner of the kitchen. "I am tired."

"What keeps ye from bed, then? As for me, I'll not quit this chair till Dick comes home."

Mrs. Storms drew back into her chair and folded both hands on her lap. She was evidently afraid that her husband and son should meet while the former was in that state of mind.

"I wonder where he is stopping," she said, unconsciously speaking aloud.

"At the public. Where else can he harbor at this time of night? When Dick is missing one is safe to look for him there."

"It may be that he has stopped in at Jessup's. I am sure that pretty Ruth could draw him from the public any day."

"But it'll not be long, as things are going, before Jessup 'll forbid him the house. The girl has high thoughts of herself, with all her soft ways, and will have a good bit of money when her god-mother dies and the old gardener has done with his. If Dick goes on at this pace some one else will be sure to step in, and there isn't such another match for him in the whole county."

"But he may be coming from the gardener's cottage now," suggested the mother. "Young men do not always give it out at home when they visit their sweethearts. You remember—"

Here a smile, full of pleasant memories, softened the old man's face, and his hard hand stole into his wife's lap, searching shyly for hers.

"Maybe I do forget them times more than I ought, wife; but no one can say I ever went by your house to spend a night at the ale-house—now, can they?"

"But Dick may not do it either," pleaded the mother.

"I tell you, wife, there is no use blinding ourselves: the young man spends half his time treating the lazy fellows of the neighborhood, for no one else has so much money."

The old lady sighed heavily.

"Worse than that! he joins in all the low sports of the place. Why, he is training rat-terriers in the stable and game-chickens in the barnyard. I caught him fighting them this very morning."

"Oh, John!" exclaimed the woman, ready to accuse any one rather than her only child; "if you had only listened to me when we took him out of school, and given him a bit more learning."

"He's got more learning by half than I ever had," answered the old man, moodily.

"But you had your way to make and no time for much study; but we are well-to-do in the world, and our son need not work the farm like us."

"I don't know but you are right, old woman. Dick never will make a good farm-hand. He wants to be master or nothing."

"Hark—he is coming!" answered the wife, brightening up and laying her hand on the old man's arm.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SON'S RETURN.

WHEN Richard Storms entered his father's house that night it was with the air of a man who had some just cause of offence against the old people who had been so long waiting for him. His sharp and rather handsome features were clouded with temper as he pushed open the kitchen door and held it while two ugly dogs crowded in, and his first words were insolently aggressive.

"What! up yet, sulking over the fire and waiting for a row, are you? Well, have it out; one of the men told me that brute of a horse had got home with his leg twisted. I wish it had been his neck. Now, what have you got to say about it?"

The elder Storms started up angrily, but his wife laid a hand on his shoulder and besought silence with her beseeching eyes. Then she was about to approach the young man, but one of the dogs snapped fiercely at her, and when the son kicked him, retreated, grinding a piece of her dress in his teeth.

"You had better take care, mother! The landlord of the 'Two Ravens' has had him in training. He's been in a grand fight over yonder, and killed more rats than you'd want to count. That makes him savage, you know."

Mrs. Storms shrunk away from the danger, and in great terror crouched down by the oaken chair from which her husband had risen. The old man started forward, but before he could shake off the hold of his wife, who seized his garments in a spasm of distress, Richard had kicked both dogs through the door.

"Take that for your impudence," he said, fiercely. "To the kennel with you! it's the only place for such curs. Mother, mother, I say, get up; the whelps are gone. I didn't expect to find you out of bed, or they shouldn't have come in."

Mrs. Storms stood up, still shaking with fear, while Richard dropped into his father's chair and stretched his limbs out upon the hearth. The old man took another seat, frowning darkly.

"We have been talking about you—father and I," said the old woman, with a quiver of the passing fright in her voice.

"No good, I'll be sworn, if the old man had a hand in it," answered the son.

"You are wrong," said the mother, pressing her hand on the young man's shoulder. "No father ever thought more of a son, if you would only do something to please him now and then. He was speaking just now of letting you have more charge of the place."

"Well, that will come when I am my own master."

"That is, when I am dead!" broke in the old man, with bitter emphasis. "I almost wish for death now. What your mother and I have to live for, God only knows."

"Hush, John, hush! Don't talk so. Richard will forget his idle ways, and be a blessing to us yet. Remember how we have spoiled him."

"There, there, mother, let him have it out. There's no use reasoning with him when his back is up," said the young man, stretching himself more comfortably and turning a belligerent look on the father.

Mrs. Storms bent over her son, greatly troubled.

"Don't anger your father, Dick. He was planning kindly for you."

"Planning what?—to keep me tied down here all my life?"

"If I have tried to do that," said the old man, "it came from more love than I felt like talking about. Your mother and I haven't many pleasures now, and when you are away so much we feel lonesome."

Dick turned in his chair and looked keenly at the old man, amazed by his unusual gentleness. The lines that seemed hard as steel in his young face relaxed a little.

"Why couldn't you have talked like that oftener, and made it a little more pleasant at home? One must have something of life. You know that as well as I do, father."

"Yes; your mother and I have been making allowances for that. Maybe things might have been managed for the better all along; but we must make the best of it now. As your mother says, a well-to-do man's only son should make something better of himself than a farm drudge; so we won't quarrel about it. Only be careful that the lass your mother and I have set our hearts on gets no evil news of you, or we shall have trouble there."

Richard laughed at this and answered with an air of bravado, "No fear, no fear. The girl is too fond of me."

"But her father is a skittish man to deal with, once his back is up, and you will find it hard managing the lass: let him see you with them terriers at your heels, and he'll soon be off the bargain."

"If you are troubled about that, kick the dogs into the street and sell the game-chickens, if they crowd mother's bantams out. How can a dutiful son do more than that?"

"Ah, now you talk like a sensible lad! Make good time, and when you bring the lass home, mother and I will have a bit of a cottage on the land, and mayhap you will be master here."

"Is he in earnest, mother?"

"I think he is."

"And you, father?"

"For once I mean that your mother shall take her own way: mine has led to this."

The old man looked at the clock, and then on the wet marks of the dogs' feet on the kitchen floor, with grave significance.

Young Storms laughed a low, unpleasant laugh, which had nothing of genuine hilarity in it.

"You are right, father. We should only have gone from bad to worse. I don't take to hard work, but the other thing suits me exactly. You'll see that I shall come up to time in that."

Just then the old clock struck one with a hoarse, angry clang, as if wrathful that the morning should be encroached upon in that house.

Mrs. Storms took up one of the candles and gave it to her son.

"Good-night, my son," she said, looking from the clock to her husband with pathetic tenderness in her voice. "Dick, you can kiss me good-night as you used to when I went to tuck up your bed in the winter. It'll seem like old times, won't it, husband? Shake hands with your father, too. It isn't many men as would give up as he has."

The young man kissed his mother, with some show of feeling, and shook hands with his father in a hesitating way; but altogether his manner was so conciliatory that it touched those honest hearts with unusual tenderness.

"You see what kindness can do with him," said Mrs. Storms, as she stood on the hearth with the other candlestick in her hand, while her husband raked up the fire. "He has gone up to bed with a smile on his face."

"People are apt to smile when they get their own way," muttered the old man, who was half ashamed of his concession. "But I have no idea of taking anything back. You needn't be afraid of that. The young man shall have his chance."

A sob was the only answer he got. Looking over his shoulder, as he put the shovel in its corner, he saw that tears were streaming down the old woman's face.

"Why, what are you crying about, mother?"

"I am so thankful."

The good woman might have intended to say more, but she broke off suddenly, and the words died on her lips. The candle she held was darkened, and she saw that the wick was broadening at the top like a tiny mushroom, forming that weird thing called a "corpse-light" in the midst of the blaze.

"What is the matter? What are you afraid of?" said the farmer, wondering at the paleness in his wife's face.

"Look," she said, pointing to the heavy wick. "It seems to have come all of a sudden."

"Only that?" said the old man, scornfully, snuffing out the corpse-light with his thumb and finger.

A shudder passed over the woman as those horny fingers closed on the corpse-light and flung it smoking into the ashes.

The old man had no sympathy with superstitions, and spoke to his wife more sharply than was kind, after the double fright that had shaken her nerves. Perhaps this thought came over him, for he patted her arm with his rough hand, awkwardly enough, not being given to much display of affection, and told her that she had for once got her own way, and mustn't be frightened out of what sleep was left for them between that and daylight by a smudge of soot in the candle.

"You can't expect candles to burn after midnight without crumpling up their wicks," he said, philosophically: "so come to bed. The lad is sound asleep by this time, I dare say."

These kind arguments did not have the desired effect, for the mother's eyes were full of tears, and her hand quivered under the weight of the candlestick, spite of all her efforts to conceal it from the observation of her husband.

In less than ten minutes the farmer was asleep, but his wife, being of a finer and more sensitive nature, could not rest. Like most countrywomen of her class, she mingled some degree of superstition even with her most religious thoughts. Notwithstanding her terror occasioned by the snarling dog, she might have slept well, for the scene that had threatened to end in rageful assault had subsided in unexpected concession; but the funereal blackness in that candle coming so close upon her fright completely unnerved her. Certain it is no sleep came to those weary eyes. Close them as she would, that unseemly light glared upon them, and to her weird imagination seemed to point out some danger for her son.

At last the poor woman was seized with a desperate yearning of motherhood, which had often led her to her son's room when the helplessness of infancy or the perils of sickness appealed to her—a yearning that drew her softly from her bed. Folding a shawl over her night dress, she mounted the stairs and entered the chamber where the young man lay in slumber so profound that he was quite unconscious of her presence; for neither conscience nor tenderness ever took growth enough in his nature to disturb an animal want of any kind. But the light of a waning moon lay upon his face, so the woman fell upon her knees, and gazing on those features, which might not have seemed in any degree perfect to another, soothed herself into prayer, and, out of the tranquillity that brings, into the sleep her nature craved so much.

The morning light found her kneeling thus, with her cheek resting on his hand, which, in her tender unconsciousness, she had stolen and hidden away there.

CHAPTER V.

CONFESSING HIS LOVE.

NORSTON'S REST" was now in a state of comparative quiet. The throng of visitors that had made the place so brilliant had departed, and, for the first time in months, Sir Noel could enjoy the company of his son with a feeling of restfulness; for now the discipline of school and college lay behind the young man, and he was ready to begin life in earnest. After travelling a while on the continent he had entered upon the dignity of heir-ship with all the pomp and splendor of a great ovation, into which he had brought so much of kindly memory and generous purpose that his popularity almost rivalled the love and homage with which his father was regarded.

Sir Noel was a proud man—so proud that the keenest critic must have failed to discover one trace of the arrogant self-assumption that so many persons are ready to display as a proof of superiority. With Sir Noel this feeling was a delicate permeation of his whole being, natural to it as the blue blood that flowed in his veins, and as little thought of. Profound self-respect rendered encroachment on the reserve of another simply impossible. During the stay of his son at "The Rest" one fond hope had possessed the baronet, and that grew out of his intense love of two human beings that were dearest to him on earth—the young heir and Lady Rose Hubert.

It could not be asserted that ambition led to this wish; though the lady's rank was of the highest, and she was the inheritor of estates that made her a match even for the heir of "Norston's Rest." The baronet in the isolation of his long widowerhood had found in this fair girl all that he could have desired in a daughter of his own. Her delicacy of bloom and beauty appealed to his æsthetic taste. Her gayety and the spirituelle sadness into which it sometimes merged gave his home life a delightful variety. He could not think of her leaving "The Rest" without a pang such as noble-hearted fathers feel when they give away their daughters at the altar. To Sir Noel, Lady Rose was the brightest and most perfect being on earth, and the great desire of his heart was that she should become his daughter in fact, as she already was in his affections.

Filled with this hope he had watched with some anxiety for the influence this young lady's loveliness might produce upon his son, without in any way intruding his wishes into the investigation; for, with regard to the perfect freedom which every heart should have to choose a companionship of love for itself, this old patrician was peculiarly sensitive. Having in his own early years suffered, as few men ever had, by the uprooting of one great hope, he was peculiarly anxious that no such abiding calamity should fall on the only son and heir of his house, but he was not the less interested in the choice that son might make when the hour of decision came. With all his liberality of sentiment it had never entered the thoughts of the baronet that a man of his race could choose ignobly, or look beneath the rank in which he was born. To him perfect liberty of choice was limited, by education and family traditions, to a selection among the highest and the best in his own proud sphere of life. Thus it became possible that his sentiments, uttered under this unexplained limitation, might be honestly misunderstood.

Some months had passed since the young heir had taken up his home at "The Rest"—pleasant months to the baronet, who had looked forward to this period with the longing affection which centred everything of love and pride on this one human being that man can feel for man. At first it had been enough of happiness that his son was there, honored, content—with an unclouded and brilliant future before him—but human wishes are limitless, and the strong desire that the young man should anchor his heart where his own wishes lay grew into a pleasant belief. How could it be otherwise, when two beings so richly endowed were brought into the close companionship of a common home?

One day, when the father and son chanced to be alone in the grand old library, where Sir Noel spent so much of his time, the conversation seemed naturally to turn upon some future arrangements regarding the estate.

"It has been a pleasant burden to me so far," said the old gentleman, "because every day made the lands a richer inheritance for you and your children; but now I am only waiting for one event to place the heaviest responsibility on your young shoulders."

"You mean," said the young man, flushing a little, "that you would impose two burdens upon me at once—a vast estate and some lady to preside over the old house."

The baronet smiled, and answered with a faint motion of the head.

Then the young man answered, laughingly:

"There is plenty of time for that. I have everything to learn before so great a trust should be given me. As for the house, no one could preside there better than the Lady Rose."

The baronet's face brightened.

"No," he said, "we could hardly expect that. In all England it would be difficult to find a creature so lovely and so well fitted to the position."

Sir Noel faltered as he concluded this sentence. He had not intended to connect the idea of this lady so broadly with his wishes. To his refined nature it seemed as if her dignity had been sacrificed.

"She is, indeed, a marvel of beauty and goodness," answered the young man, apparently unmindful of the words that had disturbed his father. "I for one am in no haste to disturb her reign at 'Norston's Rest'."

Sir Noel was about to say: "But it might be made perpetual," but the sensitive delicacy natural to the man checked the thought before it formed itself into speech.

"Still it is in youth that the best foundations for domestic happiness are laid. I look upon it as a great misfortune when circumstances forbid a man to follow the first and freshest impulses of his heart—"

Here the baronet broke off, and a deep unconscious sigh completed the sentence.

Young Hurst looked at his father with awakened interest. The expression of sadness that came over those finely-cut features made him thoughtful. He remembered that Sir Noel had entered life a younger son, and that he had not left the army to take possession of his title and estates until after mid-age. He could only guess at the romance of success or disappointment that might have gone before; but even that awoke new sympathy in the young man's heart for his father.

"I can hardly think that there is any time of life for which a man has power to lay down for himself certain rules of action," he said. "To say that any man will or will not marry at any given period is to suppose him capable of great control over his own best feelings."

"You are right," answered Sir Noel, with more feeling than he usually exhibited. "The time for a man to marry is when he is certainly in love."

"And the person?" questioned the young man, with a strange expression of earnestness in his manner.

"Ah! The person that he does love."

Sir Noel, thinking of his ward, was not surprised to see a flood of crimson rush over the young man's face, nor offended when he arose abruptly and left the library.

CHAPTER VI.

CONFESSIONS OF LOVE.

THE baronet might, however, have been surprised had he seen Walton Hurst pass the Lady Rose on the terrace, only lifting his hat in recognition of her presence as he hurried into the park.

"He guesses at my madness, or, at the worst, he will forgive it," ran through his thoughts as he took a near route toward the wilderness, "and she—ah, I have been cruel in this strife to conquer myself. My love, my beautiful wild-bird! It will be sweet to see her eyes brighten and her mouth tremble under a struggle to keep back her smiles."

Thoughts like these occupied the young man until he stood before the gardener's cottage, and looked eagerly into the porch, hoping to see something besides the birds fluttering under the vines. He was disappointed: no one was there; but glancing through the oriel window he saw a gleam of warm color and the dejected droop of a head, that might have grown weary with looking out of the window; for it fell lower and lower, as if two unsteady hands were supporting the face. Hurst trod lightly over the turf, holding his breath, lifted the latch and stole into the little parlor in which the girl, we have once seen in the porch, was sitting disconsolately, as she had done hours each day through a lonely week.

"Ruth!"

The girl sprang to her feet, uttering a little cry of delight. Then an impulse of pride seized upon the heart that was beating so wildly, and she drew back, repudiating her own gladness.

"I hoped to find you here and alone," he said, holding out both hands with a warmth that astonished her; for she shrunk back and looked at him wonderingly.

"I have been away so long, and all the time longing to come; nay, nay, I will not have that proud lift of the head; for, indeed, I deserve a brighter welcome."

The girl had done her best to be reserved and cold, but how could she succeed with those pleading eyes upon her—those two hands searching for hers?

"It is so long, so long," she said, with sweet upbraiding in her eyes; "father has wondered why you did not come. It is very cruel neglecting him so."

Hurst smiled at her pretty attempt at subterfuge; for he really had not spent much of his time in visiting Jessup, though the gardener had been a devoted friend during his boyhood, and truly believed that it was old remembrances that brought the young man so often to his cottage.

"I fancy your father will not have missed me very much," he said.

"But he does; indeed, indeed he does."

"And you cared nothing?"

Ruth dropped her eyelids, and he saw that tears were swelling under them. Selfishly watching her emotion until the long black lashes were wet, he lifted her hands suddenly to his lips and kissed them, with passionate warmth.

She struggled, and wrenched her hands away from him.

"You must not—you must not: father would be so angry."

"Not if he knew how much I love you."

She stood before him transfigured; her black eyes opened wide and bright, her frame trembled, her hands were clasped.

"You love me—you?"

"Truly, Ruth, and dearly as ever man loved woman," was the earnest, almost solemn, answer.

The girl turned pale, even her lips grew white.

"I dare not let you," she said, in a voice that was almost a whisper. "I dare not."

"But how can you help it?" said Hurst, smiling at her terror.

"How can I help it?"

The girl lifted her hands as if to ward him away. This announcement of his love frightened her. A sweet unconscious dream that had neither end nor beginning in her young experience had been rudely broken up by it.

"You tremble—you turn pale. Is it because you cannot love me, Ruth?"

"Love you—love you?" repeated the girl, in wild bewilderment. "Oh, God! forgive me—forgive me! I do, I do!"

Her face was one flame of scarlet now, and she covered it with her hands—shame, terror, and a great ecstasy of joy seized upon her.

"Let me go, let me go, I cannot bear it," she pleaded, at length. "I dare not meet my father after this."

"But I dare take your hand in mine and say to him, as one honorable man should say to another: 'I love this girl, and some day she shall become my wife.'"

"Your wife!"

"I did not know till now the sweetness that lies in a single word. Yes, Ruth, when a Hurst speaks of love he speaks also of marriage."

"No, no, that can never be—Sir Noel, Lady Rose, my father—you forget them all!"

"No, I forget nothing. Sir Noel is generous, and he loves me. You have always been a favorite with Lady Rose. As for your father—"

"He would die rather than drag down the old family like that. My father, in his way, is proud as Sir Noel. Besides—besides—"

"Well, what besides?"

"He has promised. He and John Storms arranged it long ago."

"Arranged what, Ruth?"

"That—that I should some day be mistress of the farm."

"Mistress of the farm—and you?"

"Oh, Mr. Hurst! it breaks my heart to think of it, but father's promise was given when I did not care so much, and I let it go on without rebelling."

Ruth held out her hands, imploringly, as she said this, but Hurst turned away from her, and began to pace up and down the little parlor, while she shrunk into the recess of the window, and watched him timidly through her tears. At last he came up to her, blaming his own anger.

"This must never be, Ruth!"

"You do not know what a promise is to my father," said the girl, with piteous helplessness.

"Yes, I do know; but this is one he shall not keep."

Once more the young man took the hands she dared not offer him again, and pressed them to his lips. Then he went away full of anger and perplexity.

Ruth watched him through the window till his tall figure was lost in the windings of the path; then she ran up to her own little room, and throwing herself on the bed, wept until tears melted away her trouble, and became an exquisite pleasure. The ivy about the window shed a lovely twilight around her, and the shadows of its trembling leaves tinted the snowy whiteness of the pillow on which her cheek rested, with fairy-like embroidery. The place was like heaven to her. Here this young girl lay, thrilled heart and soul by the first passion of her womanhood. This feeling that burned on her cheek, and swelled in her bosom, was a delicious insanity. There was no hope in it—no chance for reason, but Hurst loved her, and that one thought filled the moment with joy.

With her hands clasped over her bosom, and her eyes closed in the languor of subsiding emotion, she lay as in a dream, save that her lips moved, as red rose-leaves stir when the rain falls on them, but all that they uttered was, "He loves me—he loves me."

If a thought of her father or of Richard Storms came to mar her happiness, she thrust it away, still murmuring, "He loves me. He loves me."

After a time she began to reason, to wonder that this one man, to whom the giving of her childish admiration had seemed an unpardonable liberty, could have thought of her at all, except as he might give a moment's attention to the birds and butterflies that helped to make the old place pleasant. How could he—so handsome, so much above all other gentlemen of his own class—think of her while Lady Rose was near in all the splendor of her beauty and the grace of a high position!

"Was it that she was also beautiful?"

When this question arose in her mind, Ruth turned upon her pillow, and, half ashamed of the movement, looked into a small mirror that hung on the opposite wall. What she saw there brought a smile to her mouth and the flash of diamonds to the blackness of her eyes.

"Not like the Lady Rose," she thought, "not fair and white like her; but he loves me! He loves me!"

CHAPTER VII.

JUDITH.

RUTH JESSUP was indeed more deeply pledged to Richard Storms than she was herself aware of. The old farmer and Jessup had been fast friends for years when these young people were born, and almost from the first it had become an understanding between them that their families should be united in these children. The two fathers had saved money in their hard-working and frugal lives, which was to lift the young people into a better social class than the parents had any wish to occupy, and each had managed to give to his child a degree of education befitting the advancement looked forward to in their future.

Young Richard had accepted this arrangement with alacrity when he was old enough to comprehend its advantages, for, of all the maidens in that neighborhood, Ruth Jessup was the most beautiful; and what was equally important to him, even in his boyhood, the most richly endowed. As for the girl herself, the importance of this arrangement had never been a subject of serious consideration.

Bright, gay, and happy in her nest-like home, she accepted this lad as a special playmate in her childhood, and had no repugnance to his society after that, so long as more serious things lay in the distance. Brought up with those habits of strict obedience so commendable in the children of English parents, she accepted without question the future that had seemed most desirable to her father, who loved her, as she well knew, better than anything on earth.

Indeed, there had been a time in her immature youth when the presence of young Storms filled all the girlish requirements of her life. Nay, as will sometimes happen, the very dash and insolence of his character had the charm of power for her; but since then the evil of his nature had developed into action, while her judgment, refined and strengthened, began to revolt from the traits that had seemed so bold and manly in the boy.

Jessup had himself been somewhat displeased by the idle habits of the young man, and had expostulated with the father on the subject so directly that Richard was put on a sort of probation after his escapade at the hunt, and found his presence at the gardener's cottage less welcome than it had been, much to his own disgust.

"I have given up the dogs and nursed that lame brute as if I had been his grandmother—what more can any reasonable man want?" he said one day when Jessup had looked coldly on him.

"If you would win favor with daughter Ruth, my lad, go less with that gang at 'The Two Ravens,' and turn a hand to help the old father. When that is done there will always be a welcome for you; but my lass has no mother to guide her, and I must take extra care that she does not match herself illy. Wait a while, and let us see the upshot of things."

"Is it that you take back your word?" questioned Richard, anxiously.

"Take back my word! Am I a man to ask that question of? No, no; I was glad about the terriers, and shall not be sorry to see you on the back of the horse when he is well, for he is a fair hunter and worth money; but daughter Ruth has heard of these things, and it'll be well to keep away for a bit till they have time to get out of her mind."

"I'll be sure to remember what you say, and do nothing to anger any one," said Storms, with more concession than Jessup expected, and the young man rode away burning with resentment.

"So I am to be put in a corner with a finger in my mouth till this pretty sweetheart of mine thinks fit to call me out of punishment. As if there were no other inn but 'The Two Ravens,' and no other lass worth making love to but her! Now, that the hunter is on his feet again, I'll take care that she'll know little of what I am doing."

This conversation happened a few days after the hunt. Since that time Storms had never been heard of at the "Two Ravens," and his name had begun to be mentioned with respect in the village, much to Jessup's satisfaction.

Occasionally, however, the young man was seen mounted on the hunter, and dressed like a gentleman, riding off into the country on business for his father. The people who met him believed this, and they gave him credit for the change that a few weeks had wrought.

Was it instinct in the animal, or premeditation in his rider that turned the hunter upon the old track the first time he was taken from the stable? Certain it is that Richard Storms rode him leisurely up the long hill and by the lane which led to the dilapidated house he had visited on the day of his misfortune, but without calling at the house.

After he had pursued this course a week or more, riding slowly in full view of the porch, until he was certain that one of its inmates had seen him, he turned from the road one day, left his horse under a chestnut tree that grew in the lane, and sauntered down the weedy path toward the house.

Looking eagerly forward, he saw Judith Hart in the porch. She was standing on a small wooden bench, with both arms uplifted and bare to the shoulders. Evidently the unpruned vines had broken loose, and she was tying them up again.

As she heard the sound of hoofs the girl stooped down and looked through the vines with eager curiosity.

She jumped down from the bench as she recognized the young man, a vivid flush of color coming into her face and a sparkle of gladness in her eyes. If he had forgotten that day when the first cup of milk was given, she had not.

At first a smile parted her red lips; then a sullen cloud came over her, and she turned her back, as if about to enter the house, at which he laughed inly, and walked a little faster until a new mood came over her, and she stood shyly before him on the porch, playing with the vine leaves, a little roughly; yet, under all this affectation, she was deeply agitated.

"I have come," he said, mounting the broken steps of the porch, "for another glass of water. You look cross, and would not give me a cup of milk if I asked for it ever so humbly."

"There is water in the well, if you choose to draw it," answered the girl, turning her face defiantly upon him. "I had forgotten all about the other."

"And about me too, I dare say?"

"You! Ah, now, that I look again, you have been here before. One cannot remember forever."

Storms might have been deceived but for the swift blushes that swept that face, and the smile that would not be suppressed.

"I have been so busy," he said; "and this is an out-of-the-way place."

Out-of-the-way place! Why, Judith had seen him ride by a dozen times without casting his eyes toward the poor house she lived in, and each time with a swift pang at the heart; but she would have died rather than let him know it, having a fair amount of pride in her nature, crude as it was.

"Will you come in?" she said, after an awkward pause.

The young man lifted his hat and accepted this half-rude invitation.

He did draw water from the well that day, while Judith stood by with a glass in her hand, exulting while she watched him toil at the windlass, as she had done when he asked for a drink. Some vague idea of a woman's dignity had found exaggerated development since that time in Judith's nature, and though she dipped the water from the bucket, and held it sparkling toward him, it was with the air of an Indian princess, scorning toil, but offering hospitality. She was piqued with the man, and would not seem too glad that he had come back again.

"There is no water in all the valley like that in your well," he said, draining the glass and giving it back with a smile; "no view so beautiful as that which strikes the river yonder and looks up the gorge. There must be pleasant walks in that direction."

"There the river is awful deep, and a precipice shelves over it ever so high. I love to sit there sometimes, though it makes most people dizzy."

"Some day you will show me the place?"

"Oh, it is found easy enough. A foot-path is worn through the orchard. Everybody knows the way."

"Still, I shall come to-morrow, and you will show it to me?"

The color rose in Judith's face.

"No," she said; "I shall have work to do."

There was pride, as well as a dash of coquetry, in this. Judith resented the time that had been lost, and the forgetfulness that had wounded her.

Perhaps it was this seeming indifference that inspired new admiration in the young man. Perhaps it was the unusual bloom of beauty dawning upon her that reminded him vividly of Ruth Jessup; for the same richness of complexion was there—the dark eyes and heavy tresses with that remarkable purple tinge that one sees but once or twice in a lifetime. Certain it is, he came again, and from that time the change in Judith, body and soul, grew positive, like the swift development of a tropical plant.

CHAPTER VIII.

WAITING FOR HIM.

JUDITH stood within her father's porch once more—this time leaning forward eagerly, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking from under it in an attitude of intense expectation.

As she waited there, with fire on her cheeks and longing in her eyes, the change that a few months had made was marvellous. Those eyes, at first boldly bright, were now like velvet or fire, as tenderness or passion filled them. She had grown taller, more graceful, perhaps a little less vigorous in her movements; but in spirit and person the girl was vividly endowed with all that an artist would have desired for a picture of her own scriptural namesake Judith.

This question was on her lips and in her eyes: "Will he come alone? Oh, will he come alone?"

Was it her father she was watching for, and did she wish him to come alone? If she expected that, why were those scarlet poppies burning in the blackness of her hair? Why had she put on that chintz dress with tufts of wild flowers glowing on a maroon ground?—all cheap in themselves, but giving richness of color to match that of her person. Her father had gone to bed supperless one night because the money for that knot of red ribbon on her bosom had been paid to a pedlar who cajoled her into the purchase.

Evidently some one besides the toiling old man was expected. Judith never in her life had waited so anxiously for him. There was a table set out in the room she had left, on which a white cloth was spread; a glass dish of blackberries stood on this table, and by it a pitcher-full of milk, mantled temptingly with cream.

Does any one suppose that Judith had arranged all this for the father whom she had sent supperless to bed only a few days before, because of her longing for the ribbon that flamed on her bosom?

No, no; Richard Storms had made good use of his opportunities. Riding his blood-horse, or walking leisurely, he had mounted that hill almost every day since his second visit to the old house.

I have said that a great change had taken place in Judith's person. Indeed, there was something in her face that startled you. Until a few months since her deepest feelings had been aroused by some sensational romance; but now all the poetry, all the imagination and rude force of her nature were concentrated in a first grand passion. Females like Judith, left to stray into life untaught and unchecked—through the fervor of youth—inspired by ideas that spring out of their own boundless ignorance, sometimes startle one with a sudden development of character.

As a tropical sun pours its warmth into the bosom of an orange tree, ripening its fruit before the blossoms fall, first love had awakened the strong, even reckless nature of this girl, and inspired all the latent elements of a character formed like the garden in which we first saw her, where fruit, weeds, and flowers struggled for life together. Without method or culture, these elements concentrated to mar or brighten her future life.

For a while after that second visit of Storms, Judith had held her independence bravely. When the young man came, she was full of quaint devices for his entertainment, bantering him all the time with good-natured audacity, which he liked. She took long rambles with him down the hillside, rather proud that the neighbors should witness her conquest, but without a fear, or even thought, of the scandal it might occasion.

Sometimes they sat hours together under the orchard-trees, where she would weave daisy-chains or impatiently tear up the grass around her as he became tender or tantalizing in his speech.

For a time her voice—a deep, rich contralto—filled the whole house as it went ringing to and fro, like the joyous out-gush of a mocking-bird, for in that way she gave expression to the pride and glory that possessed her.

The girl told her father nothing of this, but kept it hoarded in her heart with the secret of her novel-reading. But he saw that she grew brighter and more cheerful every day, that her curt manner toward himself had become almost caressing, and that the house had never been so well cared for before. So he thanked God for the change, and went to his work more cheerfully.

No, it was not for the old father that worshipped her that Judith stood on the porch that day. The meagre affection she felt for him was as nothing to the one grand passion that had swallowed up everything but the intense self-love that it had warmed into unwholesome vigor.

She was only watching for her father because of her hope that another and a dearer one was coming with him.

"Dear me, it seems as if the sun would never set!" she exclaimed, stepping impatiently down from the wooden stool. "What shall I do till they come? I wonder, now, if there would be time to run out and pick a few more berries? The dish isn't more than half full, and father hinted that some were getting ripe on the bushes by the lower wall. I've a good mind to go and see. I hate to have them look skimpy in the dish. Anyway I'll just get my sun-bonnet and try. Father seemed to think that I might pick them for our tea. As if I'd a-gone out in the hot sun for the best father that ever lived! But let him think so if he wants to. One may as well please the poor old soul once in a while."

Judith went into the kitchen, took a bowl from the table, and hurried down toward the orchard-fence, where she found some wild bushes clambering up the stonework, laden with fruit. A flock of birds fluttered out from the bushes at her approach, each with his bill stained blood-red and his feathers in commotion.

Judith laughed at their musical protests, and fell to picking the ripe berries, staining her own lips with the largest and juiciest now and then, as if to tantalize the little creatures, who watched her longingly from the boughs of a neighboring apple tree.

All at once a shadow fell upon the girl, who looked up and saw that the golden sunshine was dying out from the orchard.

"Dear me, they may come any minute!" she said, shaking up the berries in her bowl. "A pretty fix I should be in then, with my mouth all stained up and my hair every which way; but it is just like me!"

Away the girl went, spilling her berries as she ran. Leaving them in the kitchen, she hurried up to her own room and gave herself a rapid survey in the little seven-by-nine looking-glass that hung on the wall.

"Well, if it wasn't me, I should almost think that face was going to be handsome one of these days," she thought, striving to get a better look at herself by a not ungraceful bend of the neck. The mirror took in her head and part of the bust on which the scarlet ribbon flamed. The face was radiant. The eyes full of happy light, smiled upon her until dimples began to quiver about the mouth, and she laughed outright.

The beautiful gipsy in the glass laughed too, at which Judith darted away and ran down-stairs in swift haste, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her heart leaped to meet them.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NEXT NEIGHBOR.

PANTING for breath, radiant with hope, Judith flung the door open.

A woman stood upon the porch, looking up at a wren that was shooting in and out among the vines, chirping and fluttering till all the blossoms seemed alive.

Judith fell back with a hostile gesture, holding the door in her hand. "Is it you?" she asked, curtly enough.

"Just me, and nobody else," answered the woman, quite indifferent to the frowns on that young face. "Hurried through my work early, and thought I'd just run over and see how you got along."

"Oh, I am doing well enough."

"But you never come round to see us now. Neighbors like us ought to be a little more sociable."

"I've had a great deal to attend to," answered Judith, still holding on to the door.

"Nothing particular just now, is there? Got nobody inside that you'd rather a next-door neighbor shouldn't see—have you?" questioned the woman, with a keen flash of displeasure in her eyes.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Parsons?"

"Oh, nothing; only I ought to know that chintz dresses of the best, and red ribbons fluttering around one like butterflies, ain't, as a general thing, put on for run-in callers such as I am. I begin to think, Judith, that what everybody is saying has more truth in it than I, as an old friend, would ever allow."

Judith turned as if to close the door and shut the intruder out; for the girl was so angry and disappointed that she did not even attempt to govern her actions. The woman had more patience.

"Don't do that, Judith; don't, now; for you will be shutting that door in the face of the best friend you've got—one that comes kindly to say her say to your face, but stands up for you through thick and thin behind your back!"

"Stands up for me! What for?" questioned the girl, haughtily, but checking a swift movement to cover the knot of ribbon with her hand. "What is it to you or any one else what I wear?"

"Oh, nothing—nothing; of course not; only, having no mother to look after you, some of the neighbors feel anxious, and the rest talk dreadfully. I have eyes as well as other people, but I never told a mortal how often I have seen you and—you know who—sitting in the orchard, hours on hours, when the old man was out to work. That isn't my way; but other people have eyes, and the best of 'em will talk."

Judith's face was crimson now, and her black eyes shot fire; but she forced herself to laugh.

"Well, let them talk; little I care about it!"

"But you ought to care, Judith Hart, if it's only for your father's sake. Somebody'll be telling him, next."

A look of affright broke through the fire in Judith's eyes, and her voice was somewhat subdued as she answered:

"But what can they tell him or any one else? Come in and tell me what they say; not that I care, only for the fun of laughing at it. Come in, Mrs. Parsons!"

Mrs. Parsons stepped within the hall and sat down in the only chair it contained, when she took off her sun-bonnet and commenced to fan herself with it, for the good woman was heated both by her walk across the fields and the curbed anger which Judith's rudeness had inspired.

"Laugh!" she said, at last. "I reckon you'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth one of these days! Talk like this isn't a thing that you or your father can afford to put up with."

"People had better let my father alone! He is as good a man as ever lived, every inch of him, if he does go out to days' work for a living!"

"That he is!" rejoined Mrs. Parsons; "which is the reason why no one has told him what was going on."

"But what is going on?" questioned Judith, with an air that would have been disdainful but for the keen anxiety that broke through all her efforts.

"That which I have seen with my own eyes I will speak of. The young man who stops each week at the public-house yonder comes up the hill too often; people have begun to watch for him, and the talk grows stronger every day. I don't join in; but most of the neighbors seem to think that you are on the highway to destruction, and are bound to break your father's heart."

"Indeed!" sneered Judith, white with wrath.

"They say the young fellow left a bad character behind him, and that his visits mean no good to any honest girl, especially a poor workingman's child, who lives from hand to mouth."

"Does my father owe them anything?" demanded Judith, fiercely.

"Not as I know of; but the long and the short of it is, Judith, people will talk so long as that person keeps coming here. A girl without a mother can't spend hours on hours with a strange young man without having awful things said about her; that's what I came to warn you of."

"There was no need of coming. Of course, I expected all the girls to be jealous, and their mothers, too, because Mr. Storms passed their doors without calling," answered Judith.

"That is just where it is. People say that the father is a fore-handed man, and keeps half a dozen hands to work on his place. This young fellow is an only son. Now, is it likely, Judith, that he means anything straight-forward in coming here so much?"

Mrs. Parsons said this with a great deal of motherly feeling, which was entirely thrown away upon Judith, who felt the sting of her words through all the kindness of their utterance.

"As if Mr. Storms was not old enough and clever enough to choose for himself," she said.

"That's the worst of it, Judith. Every one is saying that, after making his choice, he's no business coming here to fasten scandal on you."

"It isn't he that fastens scandal on me, but the vile tongues of the neighbors, that are always flickering venom on some one. So it may as well be me as another. I'm only astonished that they will allow that he has made a choice."

"Made a choice! Why, everybody knows, that he's engaged to be married!"

"Engaged to be married!"

A rush of hot color swept Judith's face as these words broke from her lips, but to retreat slowly, leaving a cold pallor behind.

"Just that. Engaged to be married to a girl who lives neighbor to his father's place—one who has plenty of money coming and wonderful good looks," said the woman.

"I don't believe it. I know better! There isn't a word of truth in what any of them says," retorted Judith, with fierce vehemence, while a baleful fire broke into her eyes that fairly frightened her visitor.

"Well, I had nothing to do with it. Every word may be a slander, for anything I know."

"It is a slander, I'll stake my life on it—a mean, base slander, got up out of spite? But who said it? Where did the story come from? I want to know that!"

"Oh, people are constantly going back and forth from 'Norston's Rest,' who put up at the public-house at the foot of the hill, where he leaves his horse. All agree in saying the same thing. Then the young man himself only smiles when he is asked about it."

"Of course, he would smile. I don't see how he could keep from laughing outright at such talk."

Notwithstanding her disdainful words, Judith was greatly disturbed. The color had faded even from her lips. Her young life knew its keenest pang when jealousy, with one swift leap, took possession of her heart and soul and tortured them. But the girl was fiery and brave even in her anguish. She would not yield to it in the presence of her visitor, who might watch and report.

"They tell you that my father does not know when Mr. Storms comes here. That, you will find, is false as the rest. He is coming home with father this afternoon. I thought it was them when you came in. Look, I have just set out the table. Wait a while, and you will see them coming down the lane together."

Judith flung open the parlor-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Parsons went in. Never had that room taken such an air of neatness within the good woman's memory. The table-cloth was spotless; the china unmatched, but brightly clean; the uncarpeted floor had been scoured and the cobwebs were all swept away. The open fireplace was crowded with leaves and coarse garden flowers.

"Well, I'm glad that I can say that much, anyway," said the good woman, looking around with no little admiration. "What a nack you have got, Judith! Just to think that a few branches from the hedge can do all that! I'll go right home and tell my girls about it."

"Not yet—not till you have seen father and Mr. Storms come in to tea, as they are sure to do before long. The neighbors are so anxious to know about it that I want them to have it from good authority."

Judith had not recovered from her first exasperation, and spoke defiantly, not at all restrained by a latent fear that her father might come alone.

Mrs. Parsons had made her way to a window, where the wren she had taken so much interest in was twittering joyously among the vine-leaves.

The great anxiety that possessed Judith drew her to the window also, where she stood trembling with dread and burning with wrath. She had been informed before that damaging rumors were abroad with regard to Storms' stolen visits, and it was agreed upon between her and the young man that he should in some natural way seek out old Mr. Hart, and thus obtain a legitimate right to visit the house.

The expectation of his coming that very afternoon had induced Judith to brighten up her dreary old home with so much care, and would make her triumph only the greater if Mrs. Parsons was present to witness his approach.

"Yes," she said, "it is father and Mr. Storms I am expecting to tea. You can see with your own eyes what friends they are."

Mrs. Parsons was not so deficient in curiosity that she did not look eagerly through the vine-leaves, even holding them apart with her own hands to obtain a good view. She saw two persons coming down the lane, as opposite in appearance as creatures of the same race could be. Young Storms walked vigorously, swinging his cane in one hand or dashing off the head of a thistle with it whenever those stately wild-flowers tempted him with their imperial purple.

To the old man who came toiling after him this reckless destruction seemed a cruel enjoyment. His gentle nature shrunk from every blow, as if the poor flowers could feel and suffer under those cruel lacerations. He could not have been induced to break the smallest blossom from its roots in that ruthless fashion, but tore up unseemly weeds in the garden gently and with a sort of compassion, for the tenderness of his nature reached the smallest thing that God has made.

A slight man loaded down with hard work, stooping in the shoulders, walking painfully beyond his usual speed, Hart appeared as he struggled to keep up with young Storms, who knew that he was weary and too old for the toil that had worn him out, but never once offered to check his own steps or wait for him to take breath.

"Yes, it is father and Mr. Storms. You can tell the neighbors that; and tell them from me that he'll come again, just as long as he wants to, and we want to have him," said Judith, triumphantly.

"I'll tell the neighbors what I have seen, and nothing more," answered the woman. "There's not one of them that wishes you any harm."

"Oh, no, of course not!" was the mocking answer.

The woman shook her head, half sorrowful, half in anger.

"Well, Judith, I won't say another word, now I see that your father knows; but it is to be hoped he has found out something better about the young man than any of us has heard of yet."

Mrs. Parsons tied her bonnet as she spoke, and casting a wistful look on the table, hesitated, as if waiting for an invitation to remain.

But Judith was too much excited for any thought of such hospitality; so the woman went away more angry than she had ever been with that motherless girl before.

The moment she was gone Judith took her bowl of blackberries, emptied them into the glass dish, heaping them unevenly on one side to conceal a crack in the glass, then ran into the hall, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her father's voice inviting some one to walk in.

CHAPTER X.

JEALOUS PASSIONS.

WALK in, Mr. Storms. Judith will be somewhere about. Oh, here she is!"

Yes, there she was, lighting up the bare hall with the rosy glow of her smiles, which, sullen as she strove to make them, beamed upon the visitor quite warmly enough to satisfy his insatiate vanity.

"Daughter, this is Mr. Storms, a young gentleman from the neighborhood of 'Norston's Rest,' come up the valley on business. He was kind enough to walk along the hill with me after I got through work, and when I told him of the view, he wanted to see it from the house."

Neither of the young people gave the slightest sign that they had met before. Judith's smile turned to an inward laugh as she made a dashing courtesy, and gave the young man her hand the moment her father's back was turned.

Storms might have kissed the hand, while the old man was hanging up his hat, but was far too prudent for anything of the kind, though he saw a resentful cloud gathering on the girl's face.

The old man gave a quiet signal to Judith that she should stop a moment for consultation, while their visitor went out of the back-door, as if tempted by a glimpse of the scenery in that direction.

"I couldn't help asking him in, daughter, so you must make the best of it. Is there anything in the house—anything for tea, I mean? No butter, I suppose?"

"Yes, there is; I churned this morning."

"You churned this morning! Why, what has come over you, daughter?"

"Dear me, what a fuss about a little churning! As if I'd never done as much before!"

The old man was so well pleased that he did not hint that butter, made in his own house, seemed like a miracle to him.

"But bread—when did we have a baking?"

"No matter about that. There are plenty of cakes, raised with eggs, too."

"That's capital," said the old man, throwing off a load of anxiety that had oppressed him all the way home. "We shall get along famously. The young man has got uncommon education, you see, Judith, and it isn't often that I get a chance to talk with any one given to reading; so I want you to make things extra nice. Now I'll go and see what can be found on the bushes."

"I've picked all the berries, and got them in the dish, father."

"Why, Judith!"

"You asked me to, or as good as that, so there's nothing to wonder at."

The old man drew a deep breath. A little kindness was enough to make him happy, but this was overpowering.

"So you picked 'em for the old man just as if he were company, dear child!—dressed up for him, too!"

Judith blushed guiltily. Her poor father was so easily deceived, that she felt ashamed of so many unnecessary falsehoods.

"I dressed up a little because I wanted to be like other girls."

"I wish you could be more like other girls," said the father, sighing, this time heavily enough; "but it's of no use wishing, is it, child?"

"I think that there is a great deal of use in it. If it were not for hoping and wishing and dreaming day-dreams, how could one live in this stupid place?"

The old man looked at his child wistfully. It was so many years since he had known a day-dream, that the idea bewildered him.

"It is so long since I was young," he said; "so very long. Perhaps I had them once, but I'm not sure—I'm not sure."

"I'm sure that the cakes will burn up if I stand here any longer," said Judith, on whom the sad pathos of her father's words made no impression. "I'll put them on the table at once. Call your friend in before they get heavy."

When the old man came in with Storms, he found Judith standing by the table, which she was surveying with no little pride. Unusual attempts had been made to decorate the room. The fireplace was turned into a tiny bower fairly set afire by a jar crowded full of great golden-hearted marigolds, that glowed through the soft greenness like flame.

All this surprised and delighted the old man. He turned with childlike admiration from the fireplace to the table, and from that to his daughter, who was now casting stolen and anxious glances into the old mirror opposite, over which was woven more delicate flowers, with the sprays of some feathery plant, heavy and rich with coral berries that scattered themselves in reflection on the glass.

The room was cool with shadows, but swift arrows of gold came shooting from the sunset through the thick vines, and broke here and there upon the floor, giving a soft glow to the atmosphere which was not heat.

The old man glanced at all this very proudly, and when one of these arrows was shivered in his daughter's hair he sat fondly admiring her; for to him she was wonderfully beautiful.

Young Storms looked at her also, with a little distrust. There was something unnatural in her high color and in the dashing nervousness of her movements as she poured out the tea, that aroused his interest. Once or twice she fixed her eyes upon him in a wild, searching fashion, that made even his cold gray eyes droop beneath their lids.

At last they all arose from the table and gathered around the window, looking out upon the sunset. It was a calm scene, rich with golden haze near the horizon; while the gap below was choked up with purple shadows through which the river flowed dimly. Of those three persons by the window, the old man was perhaps the only one who thoroughly felt all the poetic beauty of the scene; even to him the rural picture became more complete when the only cow he possessed came strolling up to the gate, thus throwing in a dash of life as she waited to be milked.

"I'll go out and milk her," said the old man. "You've had a good deal to attend to, daughter, and it is no more than fair that I should help a little."

Help a little! why it was not often that any one else went near the poor beast for weeks together; but the old man was pleased with all the girl had done, and covered her delinquency with this kindly craft as he went into the kitchen in search of a pail.

The moment he was gone, Judith turned upon her visitor.

"Let us go down into the orchard; I want to speak with you," she said.

"Why not here?" questioned the young man, who instinctively refused or evaded everything he did not himself propose.

"Because he may come back, and I want to be alone—quite alone," said the girl, impatiently. "Come, I say!"

There was something rudely imperative in the girl's manner that forced him to go; but a sinister smile crept over his face as he took his hat and followed her through the back way down to the orchard, over which the purple dusk was gathering, though flashes of sunlight still trembled on the hill-tops.

Judith did not accept the half-offered arm of the young man, but walked by his side, her head erect, her hands moving restlessly, and her black eyes, full of wistful fire, now and then turning upon him.

She leaped over the stone wall without help, though Storms reached out his hand, and frowned darkly when she refused it.

Down to an old gnarled tree, bristling with dead limbs, she led the way, and halted under its shadows.

"What does this mean?" said Storms, in a cold, low voice. "Why do you insist on bringing me here?"

"Because of something that worries me," answered Judith, trembling all over; "because I want to know the truth."

"I wonder if there is a girl in the world who has not something to worry her?" said Storms, with smiling sarcasm. "Well, now, what is the trouble? Have the old magpies been picking you to pieces again?"

"No, it isn't that, but something—I know it isn't true; but it seems to me that I can never draw a long breath till you've told me so over and over again—sworn to it."

A shade of disturbance gathered on the young man's face, but he looked at the girl, as she spoke, with sinister coolness.

"But you do not tell me what this dreadful thing is that takes away your breath."

"I—I know it is silly—"

"Of course; but what is it?"

"They tell me—I know it is an awful falsehood—but they tell me that you are engaged!"

"Well!"

"Well!—you say 'well,' as if it were possible!" cried the girl, looking wildly into his face.

"All things are possible, Judith. But is this the only thing that troubles you?"

"Is not that enough—more than enough? Why do you wait so long before denying it? Why do you look so dark and keen, as if an answer to that slander needed thought? Why don't you speak out?"

"Because I want to know everything that you have heard first, that I may deny it altogether."

"Then you deny it, do you?"

"Not till I have all the rest. When people are down on a man, they do not often stop at one charge. What is the next?"

"Oh, they amounted to nothing compared to this—just nothing. Idling away time, spending money. I—I don't remember! There was something, but I took no heed. This one thing drove the rest out of my mind. Now will you answer me?"

"Answer me a question first."

"Oh, what is it? Be quick! Have I not told you that I cannot breathe?"

"What do you care about the matter?"

"What do I care?" repeated the girl, aghast.

"Yes; why should you?"

The same love of cruelty that made this man behead thistles with his cane and set dogs to tear each other, influenced him now. He revelled in the young creature's anguish, and, being an epicure in malice, sought to prolong it.

How could the girl answer, with so much stormy surprise choking back her utterance? This man, who had spent so much time with her, who had flattered her as if she had been a goddess, whose very presence had made her the happiest creature on earth, was looking quietly in her stormy face, and asking why she should care if he were pledged to marry another!

She could not speak, but looked at him in blank dismay, her great black eyes wildly open, her lips quivering in their whiteness.

"You ask me that?" she said, at length, in a low, hoarse voice—"you dare to ask me that, after—after—"

"After what?" he said, with an innocent, questioning look, that stung her like an insult.

The girl had her voice now. Indignation brought it back. But what could she say? In a thousand forms that man had expressed his love for her; but never once in direct words, such as even a finer nature than hers could have fashioned into a direct claim.

The wrathful agony in her eyes startled the young man from his studied apathy; but before he could reach out his arms or speak, she lifted both hands to her throat and fled downward toward the gap.

This fierce outburst of passion startled the man who had so coolly aroused it. He sprang after the girl, overtook her as she came near the precipice, increasing her speed as if she meant to leap over, and seizing her by the waist, swung her back with a force that almost threw her to the ground.

"Are you crazy?" he said, as she stood before him, fierce and panting for breath.

"No," she answered, drawing so close to him that her white face almost touched his; "but you are worse than that—stark, staring mad, I tell you—when you expect to even me with any other girl."

"Even you with any other girl!" said Storms, really startled. "As if any one ever thought of it! Why, one would think you never heard of a joke before!"

"A joke?—a joke?"

"Yes, you foolish child, you beautiful fiend—a joke on my part, but something more with the miserable old gossips that have gotten up stories to torment you. As if you had not had enough of their lies!"

Judith drew a deep breath, and looked at him with all the pitiful intensity of a dumb animal recovering from a blow.

"They seemed to be in earnest. They said that you were about to marry some girl of your mother's choosing."

"Well, what then? That was reason enough why you should have laughed at it."

"But you hesitated. You looked at me with a wicked smile."

"No wonder. Who could help laughing at such folly?"

"Folly—is it folly? Just now your face is pale, but when I look at you a hot red comes about your eyes. I don't like it—I don't like it!"

"Is it strange that a sensible fellow can't help blushing when the girl he loves makes a fool of herself?"

Judith looked in that keen, sinister face with misgiving; but Storms had gained full command of his countenance now, and met her scrutiny with a smile.

"Come, come," he said, "no more of this nonsense. There isn't any such girl as you are dreaming of in the world."

"Oh, Richard, are you telling me the truth?" questioned the girl, clasping her hands, and reaching them out with a gesture of wild entreaty.

"The truth, and nothing but the truth, on my honor—on my soul!"

A fragment of rock half imbedded in the earth lay near Judith. She sunk down upon it, dashed both hands up to her face, and burst into a wild passion of weeping that shook her from head to foot.

The young man stood apart, regarding her with mingled astonishment and dismay. Up to this time she had been scarcely more than an overgrown child in his estimation, but this outgush of strength, wrath, and tears bespoke something sterner and more unmanageable than that—something that he must appease and guard against, or mischief might come of it.

He approached her with more of respect in his manner than it had ever exhibited before, and said, in a low, conciliatory tone:

"Come, Judith, now that you know this story to be all lies, what are you crying about? Don't you see that it is getting dark? What will your father think?"

Judith dashed the tears from her eyes, and, taking his arm, clung to it lovingly as she went toward home.

CHAPTER XI.

PROTEST AND APPEAL.

FATHER, father, do not ask me to meet him; from the first it was an evil engagement, broken, or should have been. Why do you wish to take it up again?"

Ruth Jessup, who made this appeal, stood in front of her father, who had just told her that it had been arranged that a speedy marriage should terminate the engagement with Richard Storms—an engagement entered into when she was scarcely more than a child. "It was high time the thing was settled," he said, "while neighbor Storms was pleased with his son and ready to settle a handsome property on him. That, with the money that would be hers in time, might enable them to move among the best in the neighborhood."

The girl listened to all this with a wild look in her face, half-rebellion, half-terror. "No," she said, straining her hands together in a passionate clasp, "you must not ask me to take him. I could not love him—the very idea is dreadful."

"But, girl, you are engaged to him. My word is given—my word is given."

"But only on condition, father—only on the condition of his amendment."

"Well, the young man has come through his probation like a gentleman, as he has a right to be. He just rode by here on his bay horse, as fine a looking young fellow as one need want for a son-in-law, lifting his hat like a lord as he passed me. We may expect him here to-night."

"But, father, I will not see him. I—I cannot."

The girl was pale and anxious; her eyes were eloquent with pleading, her mouth tremulous.

"And why not?"

"Only I cannot—I never can like him again."

The kind-hearted gardener sat down in the nearest chair, and took those two clasped hands in his, looking gravely but very kindly into the girl's troubled face.

"Daughter," he said, "workingmen don't pretend to fine sentiments, but we have our own ideas of honor, and a man's word once given in good faith must be kept, let the cost be what it may. I have given my word to neighbor Storms. It must be honestly redeemed. You made no objection then."

"But, oh, father, I was so young! How could I know what an awful thing I was doing?"

"If it was a mistake, who but ourselves should suffer for it, Ruth?"

"But he went astray—his company was of the worst."

"That is all changed and atoned for."

The girl shook her head.

"Oh, father, he was never a good son."

"That, too, is changed; no man was ever more proud of a son than neighbor Storms is now of this young man."

The girl turned away and began to cry.

"I thought you had given this up—that I should never again be tormented with it! He seemed willing to leave me alone; but now only three weeks after my godmother has promised to give me her money he comes back again! Oh, I wish she had promised it to some one else!"

"That is the very reason why we should fulfil our obligations to the letter, Ruth. It must not be said that a child of mine drew back from her father's plighted word because her dower promised to be more than double anything he had counted on when it was given."

The girl's eyes flashed and her lips curved.

"If it has made him more eager, I may well consider it," she said; "and I think it has."

"Shame on you, daughter! Such suspicions are unbecoming!"

"I cannot help them, father; the very thought of this man is hateful to me."

"Well, well," said the father, soothingly, but not the less firm in his purpose; "the young man must plead his own cause. I have no fear that he will find my child unreasonable."

The harassed young creature grew desperate; she followed her father to the door of an inner room.

"Father, come back, come back! It is cruel to put me off so!"

Ruth drew her father into the room again, and renewed her protest with the passionate entreaties that had been so ineffectual. In her desperation she spoke with unusual energy, while now and then her sentences were broken up with sobs.

"Oh, father, do not insist—do not force this marriage upon me! It will be my death, my destruction! I detest the man!"

Jessup turned away from her. That sweet appealing face made his heart ache.

Ruth saw this look of relenting, and would not give up her cause. She approached close to her father, and, clinging to his arm, implored him, with bitter sobs, to believe her when she said that this marriage would be worse than death to her.

"Hush, girl!" said the old man. "Hush, now, or I may believe some hints that the young man has thrown out of another person. No girl in these parts would refuse a young fellow so well-to-do and so good-looking, if she hadn't got some one else in her mind."

This speech was rendered more significant by a look of suspicion, which brought a rush of scarlet into the daughter's face.

"Oh, father, you are cruel!" cried the tortured young creature, struggling, as it were, for her life.

The old man turned away from this pathetic pleading; nothing but a stern sense of honor, which is so strong in some men of his class, could have nerved him against the anguish of this appeal.

"We have given our word, child; we have given our word," he said. "Neither you nor your father can go beyond that."

The gardener's voice faltered and he broke away from the trembling hands with which Ruth in her desperation sought to hold him. For the first time in his life he had found strength to resist her entreaties.

CHAPTER XII.

THE HEART STRUGGLE.

HUMBLE as Jessup's little dwelling was, there hovered about it a spirit of beauty which would have made even an uncouth object beautiful to an imaginative person. The very wild things about the park seemed to understand this: for the sweetest-toned birds haunted its eaves, and the most timid hares would creep through the tangled flower-beds and commit petty depredations in the little vegetable-garden with a sense of perfect security.

As the dawn brightened into sunrise one fair June morning a slight noise was heard in the house. The door opened, and the gardener, in the strength of his middle age, stout, fair-faced, and genial, came through, carrying a carpet-bag in his hand. Directly behind him, in the jasmine porch, stood his daughter, who seemed to shrink and tremble when her father turned back, and, taking her in his arms, kissed her twice upon the forehead with great tenderness.

"Take good care of yourself, child," he said, with a look of kindly admonition, "and do not go too freely into the park while I am away, if you would not wish to meet any guest from the house."

The girl grew pale rather than crimson, and tried to cover her agitation by throwing both arms about her father's neck, and kissing him with a passion of tenderness.

"There! there!" said the man, patting her head, and drawing his hand down the shining braids of her hair, with a farewell caress. "I will be home again before bedtime; or, if not, leave a lamp burning, and a bit of bread-and-cheese on the table, with a sup of ale; for I shall be sore and hungry! One does not eat London fare with a home relish."

"But you will surely come?" said the girl, with strange anxiety.

"Surely, child. I never sleep well under any roof but this."

"But, perhaps—It—it may be that you will come in an earlier train."

"No, no! There will be none coming this way. So do not expect me before ten of the night."

A strange, half-frightened light came into the girl's eyes, and she stood upon the porch watching the traveller's receding figure as long as she could see him through her blinding tears. Then she went into the house, cast herself on a chair, and, throwing both arms across a table, burst into a wild passion of distress.

After a time she started up, and flung back the heavy masses of hair that had fallen over her arms.

"I cannot—I dare not!" she said, flinging her hands apart, with desperate action. "He will never, never forgive me!"

For a time she sat drearily in her chair, with tears still on her cheek, and hanging heavily on the curling blackness of her eye-lashes. Very sad, and almost penitent she looked as she sat thus, with her eyes bent on the floor, and her hands loosely clasped. The rustic dress, in which a peculiar red color predominated, had all the picturesque effect of an antique painting; but the face was young, fresh, and deeply tinted with a bright gipsy-like richness of beauty, altogether at variance with her father's form or features. Still she was not really unlike him. Her voice had the same sweet, mellow tones, and her smile was even more softly winning.

But she was not smiling now; far from it! A quiver of absolute distress stirred her red lips, and the shadow of many a painful thought swept her face as she sat there battling with her own heart.

All at once the old brass clock struck with the clangor of a bell. This aroused the girl; she started up, in a panic, and began to clear the table, from which her father had eaten his early breakfast, in quick haste. One by one, she put away the pieces of old blue china into an oaken cupboard, and set the furniture in order about the room, trembling all the time, and pausing now and then to listen, as if she expected to be disturbed.

When all was in order, and the little room swept clean, the girl looked around in breathless bewilderment. She searched the face of the clock, yet never gathered from it how the minutes passed. She saw the sunshine coming into the window, bathing the white jasmine-bells with a golden light, and shrunk from it like a guilty thing.

"I—I have time yet. He must not come here. I dare not wait."

The girl snatched up a little straw-hat, garlanded with scarlet poppies, and hastily tied it on her head. In the midst of her distress she cast a look into the small mirror which hung upon the wall, and dashed one hand across her eyes, angry with the tears that flushed them.

"If he sees that I can weep, he will understand how weak I am, and all will go for nothing," she said. "Oh, God help me, here he is!"

Sure enough, through the overhanging trees Ruth saw young Hurst walking down along a path which ran along the high banks of the ravine. He saw the gleam of her garments through the leaves, and came toward her with both hands extended.

"Ready so soon, my darling?" he exclaimed, with animation. "I saw your father safe on the highway, and came at once; but—but what does this mean? Surely, Ruth, you cannot go in that dress?"

"No, I cannot. Oh, Mr. Walton, I dare not so disobey my father! He would never, never forgive me!"

The young man drew back, and a flash of angry surprise darkened his face.

"Is it that you will disappoint me, Ruth? Have I deserved this?"

"No, no; but he trusts me!"

"Have I not trusted you?"

"But my father—my father?"

"It is your father who drives us to this. He is unrelenting, or that presumptuous wretch would not be permitted to enter his dwelling. Has he dared to present himself again?"

"Yes, last night; but for that I might have lost all courage, all power of resistance."

"And you saw him? You spoke with him?"

"Only in my father's presence. I would not see him alone."

"And after seeing him, you repent?"

"No—no—a thousand times no. It is only of my father I think. I am all that he has in the world!" cried the girl, in a passion of distress.

"Have I not considered this? Do I ask you to leave him at once? One would think that I intended some great wrong; that, instead of taking—"

"Hush, hush, Mr. Walton! Do not remind me how far I am beneath you. This is the great barrier which I tremble to pass. My father never will forgive me if I dare to—"

"Become the wife of an honorable man, who loves you well enough to force him into saving his child from a hateful marriage, at the price of deceiving his own father."

"Oh, no! no! It is because you are so generous, so ready to stake everything for me, that I hesitate."

"No, it is because you fear the displeasure of a man who has almost separated us in his stubborn idea of honor. It is to his pride that my own must be sacrificed."

"Pride, Walton?"

"Yes, for he is proud enough to break up my life and yours."

"Oh, Walton, this is cruel!"

"Cruel! Can you say this, Ruth? You who trifle with me so recklessly?"

"I do not trifle; but I dare not—I dare not—"

The young man turned aside with a frown upon his face, darker and sterner than the girl had ever seen there before.

"You certainly never will trifle with me again," he said, in a deep, stern voice, which made the heart in the poor girl's bosom quiver as if an arrow had gone through it.

"Oh, do not leave me in anger," she pleaded.

He walked on, taking stern, resolute strides along the path. She saw that his face was stormy, his gestures determined, and sprang forward, panting for breath.

"Oh, Walton, Walton, forgive me!"

He looked down into her wild, eager face, gloomily.

"Ruth, you have never loved me. You will be prevailed upon to marry that hound."

She reached up her arms, and flung herself on his bosom.

"Oh, Walton, I do—I do love you!"

"Then be ready, as you promised. I have but a moment to spare."

"But my father!"

"Is it easier to abandon the man who loves you, or to offend him?"

"Oh, Walton, I will go; but alone—I tremble to think of it."

"It is only for a few miles. In less than half an hour I will join you. Be careful to dress very quietly, and seem unconscious when we meet."

"I will—I will! Only do not frown so darkly on me again."

The young man turned his fine blue eyes full upon her.

"Did my black looks terrify you, darling?" he said, with a smile that warmed her heart like a burst of sunshine. "But you deserved it. Remember that."

Ruth looked in the handsome face of her lover with wistful yearning. While alone, with her father's kind farewell appealing to her conscience, she had felt capable of a great sacrifice; but with those eyes meeting hers, with that voice pleading in her heart, she forgot everything but the promise she had made, and the overwhelming love that prompted it.

The young man read all this in those eloquent features, and would gladly have kissed the lips that still trembled between smiles and tears; but even in that solitude he was cautious.

"Now, farewell for an hour or two, and then—"

Ruth caught her breath with a quick gasp, and the color flashed back to her face, vivid as flame.

A noise among the trees startled them both. Young Hurst turned swiftly, and walked away, saying, as he went:

"Be punctual, for Heaven only knows when another opportunity will offer."

CHAPTER XIII.

ONE RASH STEP.

RUTH JESSUP hurried into the house, ran breathlessly to her chamber in the loft, and changed the coquettish dress, which gave such picturesque brightness to her beauty, for one of mingled gray and black. Not a tinge of warm color was there to betray her identity. Her small bonnet was covered by a veil so thick that no one could clearly distinguish the features underneath. In truth, her very air seemed changed, for graceful ease had given place to a timid, hesitating movement, that was entirely at variance with her character.

She came down-stairs hurriedly, and rushed through the little parlor, as if afraid that the very walls might cry out against the act she meditated.

Ruth avoided the great avenues and the lodge-gate, but hurried by the most remote paths, through the deepest shades of the park, until one brought her to a side-gate in the wall, which she opened with a key, and let herself out into the highway. There she stood, for some minutes, with her hand on the latch, hesitating, in this supreme moment of her life, as if she stood upon a precipice, and, looking into its depths, recoiled with shuddering.

It is possible that the girl might have returned even then, for a pang of dread had seized upon her; but, while she stood hesitating, a noise in the highway made her leap back from the gate with a force that closed it against her, and she stood outside, trembling from head to foot; for, coming down the highway in a cloud of dust, she saw a dog-cart, in which was Walton Hurst and a groom, driving rapidly, as if in haste to meet some train. The young man gave her one encouraging glance as he swept by; the next moment the dog-cart had turned a curve of the road, and was out of sight.

Ruth felt now that her last chance of retreat was cut off. With a feeling of something like desperation she left the gate, and walked swiftly up the road. There was no sense of fatigue in this young girl. In her wild excitement, she could have walked miles on miles without being conscious of the distance. She did, in fact, walk on and on, keeping well out of sight, till she came to a little depot, some three miles from "Norston's Rest." There she diverged from her path, and, entering the building, sat down in a remote corner, and waited, with a feeling of nervous dread, that made her start and quiver as each person entered the room.

At last the train came up, creating some bustle and confusion, though only a few passengers were in waiting. Under cover of this excitement, Ruth took her seat in a carriage, and was shut in with a click of the latch which struck upon the poor girl's heart, as if some fatal turn of a key had locked her in with an irretrievable fate.

The train rushed on with a swiftness and force that almost took away the girl's breath. It seemed to her as if she had been caught up and hurled forward to her destiny with a force no human will could resist. Then she grew desperate. The rush of the engine seemed too slow for the wild desire that succeeded to her irresolution. Yet it was not twenty minutes before the train stopped again, and, looking through the window, Ruth saw her lover leap from the platform and enter the next carriage to her own.

Had he seen her? Did the lightning glance cast that way give him a glimpse of her face looking so eagerly through the glass? At any rate, he was in the same train with her, and once more they were hurled forward at lightning speed, until sixty miles lay between them and the mansion they had left.

Once more the train stopped. This time a hand whiter than that of the guard, was reached through the door, and a face that made her heart leap with a panic of joy and fear, looked into hers. She scarcely touched this proffered hand, but flitted out to the platform, like a bird let loose in a strange place. This was a way-side station, and it happened that no person except those two left the train at this particular point. Still they parted like chance passengers, and there was no one to observe the few rapid words that passed between them in the small reception-room.

When the train was out of sight, and all the bustle attendant on its arrival had sunk into silence, these two young persons entered a carriage that stood waiting, and drove swiftly toward a small town, clouded with the smoke of factories, that lay in the distance. Through the streets of this town, and into another, still more remote, they drove, and at last drew up in a small village, to which the spire of a single church gave something of picturesque dignity.

To the door of this church the carriage went, after avoiding the inhabitable portion of the village by taking a cross-road, which led through a neighboring moor. Into the low-browed entrance Walton Hurst led the girl. The church was dim, and so damp that it struck a chill through the young creature as she approached the altar, where a man, in sacred vestments, stood with an open book in his hand, prepared for a solemn ceremony.

Two or three persons sauntered up to the church-door, attracted by the unusual presence of a carriage in that remote place, and some, more curious than the rest, came inside, and drew, open-mouthed, toward the altar, while the marriage ceremony was being performed.

When the bride turned from the altar, shivering and pale with intense excitement, two or three of these persons secured a full view of her face, and never forgot it afterward; for anything more darkly, richly beautiful than her features had never met their eyes.

Ruth was indeed lovely in this supreme moment of her life. The pallor of concentrated emotion gave depth and almost startling brilliancy to those great eyes, bright as stars, and soft as velvet, which were for one moment turned upon them. All else might have been forgotten in after years; but that one glance was burnt like enamel on more than one memory when Walton Hurst's marriage was made known to the world.

The vestry was dark and damp when they entered it, followed by a grim old clerk, and at a more respectful distance after them came three or four of the villagers, who only saw the shadowy picture of a man and woman bending over a huge book—the one writing his name with a bold dash of the hand, the other trembling so violently that for a moment she was compelled to lay the pen down, while she looked into her husband's face with a pathetic plea for patience with her weakness.

But the names were written at last, and the young couple left the church in haste, as they had entered it—the bride with a bit of paper held tightly in her hand, the bridegroom looking happy and elated, as if he had conquered some enemy.

As they drove away, two or three of the villagers, who had been drawn into the church, turned back from the porch, and stole into the vestry where the clerk stood by his open register, examining a piece of gold that had been thrust into his hand, with a look of greedy unbelief.

The clerk was saying,

"See, neighbor Knox, it is gold—pure gold. Did any one ever see the like? There is the face of Her Majesty, plain as the sun in yon sky. Oh, if a few more such rare windfalls would but come this way, my place would be worth having."

The sight of this gold only whetted the villagers' curiosity to fresh vigor. They became eager to know what great man it was who had come among them, with such shadow-like stillness, leaving only golden traces of his presence in the church; for the clerk hinted, with glee, that the pastor had been rewarded fourfold for his share in the ceremony. Then one after another of these persons looked at the register. It chanced that the record was made on the top of a blank page; thus the two names were rendered more than usually conspicuous. This was the record:

Walton Hurst—Ruth Jessup.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE WAY HOME.

MY darling—my wife! Look up and tell me that your joy is equal to mine," said Hurst, when he and his bride were seated in the carriage. "No! that is impossible; but say that you are happy, my Ruth!"

"Happy!" said the girl. "Oh, Walton, it is cruel that I can be so; but I am—I am!"

The young man took her hands in his, and kissed them with passionate warmth.

"You will never repent, Ruth?"

"Repent that I am your wife! That you—" Here the girl's great earnest eyes fell and were shaded at once by lashes black as themselves.

"Well, darling, what more?"

"That you are my husband."

The word seemed to flood her heart with sunshine, and her face with burning blushes. Its very sound was full of exquisite shame. Hurst drew that face to his bosom and kissed it with tender reverence.

"Now, my beloved, we are all the world to each other."

"All, all," she murmured; "but, oh, what will my father do?"

"He can do nothing, Ruth. But that his word was so rashly given, and his love for the old family so near a religion, that his consent could never have been attained, even though Sir Noel had himself commanded it—there should have been no secrecy in this."

"Oh, if that had been possible! But Sir Noel never would have seen his heir stoop as he has done for a wife."

"Sir Noel is not like other men of his class, my Ruth. His pride is too noble for small prejudices. Besides, I think he has suspected from the first how dear you are to me; for in a conversation the other day he seemed to hint at a vague approval. But for this I should not have acted without his positive consent."

"But my father never would have given his consent, even if Sir Noel himself had commanded it," said Ruth. "He would rather die than drag down the dignity of the Hursts."

"It was this stiff-necked integrity that forced me to a step that will be more likely to anger Sir Noel than the marriage itself would have done. One glimpse of the truth would have aroused your father to drive me from his house, dearly as he has always loved me. Then would have come this question of young Storms—don't tremble so—are you not my wife?"

"I—I should have been compelled to marry him. He loves me. My father would die for me any minute; but were I fifty times as dear he would sacrifice me to the dignity of the Hursts—to a promise once given," said Ruth, lifting her face from the bosom where it had rested.

"But you?"

"I could not have resisted. My father is so loving—so kind. He would have told me of your grandeur, your long descent, of the noble—nay, royal ladies—that had been mated with the Hursts. He would have crushed me under the weight of my own miserable presumption. He would have told me, in plain speech, what my heart reproaches me with every minute now most of all, when I am daring to be so happy."

"But you are happy?"

"Oh, Walton, it seems like wickedness, but I am; so weak, however, so fearful of what must come. Oh, give me a little time! Permit me to dream a while until some chance or great necessity makes concealment impossible. I have no courage left."

"But this Storms?"

"I have got a little respite from my father; he will not break his word, though I pleaded with him almost upon my knees—but I am not to be hurried. They are to give me time, and now, that I know in my heart that it can never, never be, the terror of him is gone. So let me have just one little season of rest before you break this to my poor father, and make me afraid to look Sir Noel in the face."

Perhaps this sweet pleading found some answer in the young man's wishes, for in speaking of Sir Noel's conversation in the library, he had discovered how little there was in it to warrant the step he had taken. At the best there was much in his rash precipitancy to displease the proud old baronet, though he should be found willing to forgive the mésalliance he had made.

If these thoughts had great influence with Hurst, the terror and troubled eloquence of his bride completed his conviction. Drawing Ruth gently toward him, he kissed her upon the forehead; for this conversation, coming into the midst of their happiness, had subdued them both.

"Be it as you wish, sweet wife. With perfect love and trust in each other, we need be in no haste to let any one share our secret."

"Oh, how kind you are!" exclaimed the girl, brightening into fresh happiness. "This will give me time to study, to add something to the education that will be precious to me now; perhaps I can make myself less unworthy of your father's forgiveness."

"Unworthy?" answered Hurst, wounded, yet half charmed by her sweet humility. "Sir Noel has always looked upon you as a pretty favorite, whom it was a pleasure to protect; and my cousin, the Lady Rose—"

"Ah, how ungrateful, how forward she will think me! My heart grows heavy when her name is mentioned."

"She has always been your friend, Ruth."

"I know—I know; and in return I have had the presumption to think of making myself her equal."

"There can be no presumption in the wife of a Hurst accepting all that he has to give; but let us talk of something else. If our happiness is to be a secret, we must not mar its first dawning with apprehensions and regrets. Some perplexities will arise, for our position will be an embarrassing one; but there is no reason why we should anticipate them. It will be difficult enough to guard our secret so well that no one shall guess it."

Ruth was smiling. She could not think it difficult to keep a secret that seemed to her far too sweet and precious for the coarser sympathy of the world. The sacredness of her marriage was rendered more profound by the silence that sanctified it to her mind.

But now the carriage stopped, and the driver was heard getting down from the box. Hurst looked out.

They were in a village through which the railroad passed—not the one they had stopped at. They had been taken above that by a short route from the church, which the driver had chosen without consultation.

"So soon! Surely we are in the wrong place," said Hurst, impatient that his happiness should be broken in upon.

"You seemed particular about meeting the down train, sir, and I came the nearest way. It is due in five minutes," answered the man, touching his hat.

There was no time for expostulation or regret. In fact, the man had acted wisely, if "Norston's Rest" was to be reached in time to save suspicion. So the newly-married pair separated with a hurried hand-clasp, each took a separate carriage, and glided safely into dreamland, as the train flew across the country at the rate of fifty miles an hour.

CHAPTER XV.

THE LADY ROSE.

NORSTON'S REST" was brilliantly lighted, for a dinner-party had assembled, when its heir drove up in his dog-cart that night, and leaping out, threw his reins to the groom, with some hasty directions about to-morrow. It was near the dinner hour, and several fair guests were lingering on the broad, stone terrace, or shaded by the silken and lace curtains of the drawing-room, watching for his return with that pretence of graceful indifference with which habits of society veil the deepest feeling.

One fair creature retreated from the terrace, with a handful of flowers which she had gathered hastily from a stone vase, and carried away when the first sound of wheels reached her; but she lingered in a little room that opened from the great hall, and seemed to be arranging her flowers with diligence in a vase that stood on a small malachite table, when young Hurst came in.

Unconsciously, and against her own proud will, she lifted her face from the flowers, and cast an eager glance into the hall, wondering in her heart if he would care to seek her for a moment before he went up to dress.

The young man saw her standing there quite alone, sweet and bright as the flowers she was arranging, and paused a moment, after drawing off his gloves; but he turned away and went up the broad, oaken staircase, with the thoughts of another face, dark, piquant, and more wildly beautiful, all bathed in blushes, too vividly in his mind for any other human features to throw even a shadow there.

The Lady Rose dropped a branch of heliotrope and a moss-rosebud, which had for one instant trembled in her hand, as Hurst passed the door, and trod upon them with a sharp feeling of disappointment.

"He knew that I was alone," she muttered, "and passed on without a word. He saw the flowers that he loves best in my hand, but would not claim them."

Tears, hot, passionate tears, stood in the lady's eyes, and her white teeth met sharply for a moment, as if grinding some bitter thing between them; but when Hurst came down-stairs, fully dressed, he found her in the drawing-room, with a richer bloom than usual on her cheeks, and the frost-like lace, which fell in a little cloud over the soft blue of her dress, just quivering with the agitation she had made so brave an effort to suppress.

As young Hurst came into the drawing-room, Sir Noel, who had been talking to a guest, came forward in the calm way habitual to his class, and addressed his son with something very like to a reproof.

"We have almost waited," he said, glancing at the young lady as the person most aggrieved. "In fact, the dinner has been put back."

The old man's voice was gentle and his manners suave; but there was a reserved undertone in his speech that warned the young heir of a deeper meaning than either was intended to suggest.

Hurst only bowed for answer.

"Now that he has come," the baronet added, smiling graciously on the young lady, but turning away from his son, "perhaps we shall not be entirely unforgiving."

Walton Hurst made no apology, however, but offered his arm to Lady Rose, and followed his father's lead into the dining-room.

It was a spacious apartment, brilliantly illuminated with gas and wax lights, which found a rich reflection from buffets loaded with plate, and a table on which gold, silver, and rare old glass gleamed and flashed through masses of hot-house flowers. A slow rustle of silken trains sweeping the floor, a slight confusion, and the party was seated.

During the first course Lady Rose was restless and piqued. She found the person at her side so thoughtful that a feeling of wounded pride seized upon her, and gave to her manner an air of graceful defiance that at last drew his attention.

So Hurst broke from the dreaminess of his love reverie and plunged into the gay conversation about him. Spite of himself the triumphant gladness of his heart burst forth, and in the glow of his own joy he met the half-shy, half-playful attentions of the high-bred creature by his side with a degree of brilliant animation which brought new bloom to her cheeks, and a smile of contentment to the lips of the proud old man at the head of the table. This smile deepened into a glow of entire satisfaction when the gentlemen were left to their wine; for then young Hurst made an excuse to his father, and, as the latter thought, followed the ladies into the drawing-room.

Deep drinking at dinner-parties is no longer a practice in England, as it may have been years ago. Thus it was not many minutes before the baronet and his guests came up-stairs to find the ladies gathered in knots about the room, and one, at least, sitting in dissatisfied solitude near a table filled with books of engravings, which she did not care to open; for all her discontent had come back when she thought herself less attractive than the wines of some old vintage, stored before she was born.

"But where is Walton?" questioned the old gentleman, approaching the girl, with a faint show of resentment. "Surely, Lady Rose, I expected to find him at your feet."

"It is a place he seldom seeks," answered the lady, opening one of the books with assumed carelessness. "If he has left the table, I fancy it must have been him I saw crossing the terrace ten minutes ago."

Sir Noel replied, incredulously:

"Saw him crossing the terrace! There must have been some mistake. I am sure he spoke of going to the drawing-room."

She hesitated.

"He changed his mind, I suppose," she said at last, with a slight but haughty wave of her hand toward a great bay-window that looked out on the park. "I saw his face as he crossed that block of moonlight on the terrace, I am quite sure. Perhaps—"

"Perhaps what, Lady Rose?"

"He has some business at the gardener's cottage. Old Jessup is a favorite, you know," answered the lady, with a light laugh, in which the old man discovered the bitterness of latent jealousy.

A hot, angry flush suffused the old man's face; but this was the only sign of anger that he gave. The next instant he was composed as ever, and answered her with seeming indifference.

"Oh, yes, I remember; I had some orders for Jessup, which he was thoughtful enough to take."

The lady smiled again, now with a curve of distrustful scorn on her red lips.

"Perhaps he failed in giving your message earlier, and in his desire to please you has forsaken us."

"Perhaps," was the indifferent reply. Then the old man moved quietly away, and speaking a gracious word here and there, glided out of the room.

Later in the evening, Lady Rose had left her book of engravings, and stood shrouded in the sweeping draperies of the great window, looking out upon the park. Directly she saw the figure of her host gliding across the terrace, which, in that place, seemed flagged with silver, the moonlight lay so full upon it. The next moment he was lost in the blackest shadows of the park.

"He has gone to seek him! Now I shall know the worst," she thought, while quick thrills of hope and dread shot like lances through her frame. "I could not stoop to spy upon him, but a father is different, and, once on the alert, will be implacable."

While these thoughts were in her mind, the girl gave a sudden start, and grasped at the silken curtains, while a faint shivering came over her, that seemed like coming death.

For deep in the woods of the park, where the gardener's cottage stood, she heard the sharp report of a gun.

"Great Heaven! What can it mean?" she cried; clasping her hands. "What can it mean?"

CHAPTER XVI.

ALONE IN THE COTTAGE.

BREATHLESS with apprehension, which was made half joy by an undeniable sense of happiness, all the more intense because it was gained by so much hazard, Ruth Jessup—for she dared not breathe that new name even to herself as yet—reached that remote gate in the park-wall, and darted like a frightened hare into the thick covert of the trees. There she lingered a while, holding her breath with dread. It was scarcely dark, but to her it seemed impossible that so few hours could have passed since she had stolen from her home. Surely, surely, her father must have returned. She would find him standing in the park, ready to arraign and judge her for the thing she had done; or he might come out to find her wandering among the ferns, so happy, yet so terrified, that she would like to stay there forever, like a bird in sight of its nest, trembling while it watched over its trust of love.

The purple twilight was just veiling the soft, green gloom of the trees with its tender darkness. Now and then a pale flash of gold shot through the leaves, giving signs that the evening had but just closed in. Still the girl hesitated. Almost, for the first time in her life, she feared to meet her father face to face. The taste of forbidden fruit was on her lips, tainted with the faint bitterness of coming ashes.

"I will go home—I must!" she said, rising from a fragment of rock that had given her a seat among the ferns. "There is yet a quiver of crimson in the air. It cannot be ten yet!"

The girl walked slowly and cautiously on until a curve in the path brought her in sight of the cottage. Then her pent-up breath came forth in a glad exclamation.

"It is dark yet! No one has been there in all this time!"

Poor child! It seemed an age since she had left the house, and a miracle that she should have found it so still and solitary. When she entered the porch, the light of a rising moon was trembling down to the honeysuckles that clung to it, and a cloud of dewy fragrance seemed to welcome her home again tenderly, as if she had no deception in her heart, and was not trembling from head to foot with vague apprehensions.

Taking a heavy key from under one of the seats which ran along each side of the porch, she opened the door and went into her home again. The moonlight came flickering through the oriel window, as if a bunch of silver arrows had been shivered against it, half illuminating the room with a soft, beautiful light. Ruth would gladly have sat down in this tranquil gloom, and given herself up to such dreams as follow a full certainty of being beloved, but the hoarse old clock twanged out the hour with a force that absolutely frightened her. She had not self-possession enough to count its strokes, but shuddered to think the night had possibly reached ten o'clock.

She lighted a lamp, looked around to make sure that nothing had been left that could betray her, then ran up-stairs, flung off her sad-colored dress, set all her rich hair free, and came down in the jaunty red over-dress and black skirt that had given her beauty such picturesque effect in the morning. All day she had been pale and feverishly flushed by turns. Now a sense of safety gave her countenance a permanent richness of color that would have been dazzling in a broader light than that lamp could give. She was under shelter in her own familiar garment; could it be that all the rest was a dream? Had she, in fact, been married?

A quick, frightened gasp answered the question. The lamp-light fell on a heavy circlet of new gold, that glittered on her finger.

Yes, it was there! His hand had pressed it upon hers; his lips had kissed it reverently. Must she take it off? Was there no way of concealing the precious golden shackle, that seemed to hold her life in?

That was impossible. That small, shapely hand had never felt the touch of ornament or ring before. The blaze of it seemed to light the whole room. Her father would see it and question her. No, no! it must be hid away before he came. She ran up-stairs, opened her bureau-drawer, and began to search eagerly for a ribbon narrow enough to escape attention. Knots of pink, and streamers of scarlet were there neatly arranged, but nothing that might answer her purpose, except a thread of black ribbon which had come out of her mourning two years before, when her mother died.

Ruth snatched this up and swung her wedding-ring upon it, too much excited for superstition at the moment, and glad to feel the perilous gift safe in her bosom.

Now all was hidden, no trace of her fault had been left. She might dare to look at the old clock.

It lacked an hour and more of the time at which she might expect her father. Well, fortunately, she had something to do. His supper must be prepared. She would take good care of him now. He should lack nothing at her hands, since she had given him such grievous cause of offence.

With these childlike ideas of atonement in her mind, Ruth took up a lamp, and going into the kitchen, kindled a fire; and spreading a white cloth on the table, set out the supper her father had desired of her. When the cold beef and mustard, the bread and cheese, were all daintily arranged, she bethought herself of his most favored dish of all, and taking a posset-dish of antique silver from the cupboard, half filled it with milk, which she set upon the coals to boil. Into this she from time to time broke bits of wheaten bread, and when the milk was all afoam, poured a cup of strong ale into it, which instantly resolved the whole mass into golden whey and snow-white curd.

As Ruth stooped over the posset-cup, shading her face with one hand from the fire, and stirring its contents gently with a spoon, a noise at the window made her start and cry out with a suddenness that nearly upset the silver porringer.

"Who is it? What is it?" she faltered, looking at the window with strained eyes. "Oh, have mercy! That face, that face!"

Before she could move away from the hearth, some one shook the window-sash so violently, that a rain of dew fell from the ivy clustering around it.

Ruth stood appalled; every vestige of color fled from her face; but she gave no further sign of the terror that shook her from head to foot. Directly the keen, handsome face that had peered through the glass disappeared, and the footsteps of a man walking swiftly sounded back from the gravel path which led to the front door.

CHAPTER XVII.

A STORMY ENCOUNTER.

RUTH held her breath and listened. She heard the door open, and footsteps in the little passage. Then her natural courage aroused itself, and lifting the posset-cup from the coals, she left it on the warm hearth, and met the intruder at the kitchen door.

"Is it you?" she said, with a quiver of fear in her voice. "I am sorry father is not at home."

"But I am not," answered the young man, setting down a gun he had brought in, behind the door. "It was just because he wasn't here, and I knew it, that I came in. It is high time, miss, that you and I should have a talk together, and no father to put in his word between pipes."

"What do you want? Why should you wish to speak with me at this time of night?"

"Why, now, I like that," answered the young fellow, with a laugh that made Ruth shudder. "Well, I'll just come in and have my say. There mayn't be another chance like this."

Richard Storms turned and advanced a step, as if he meant to enter the little parlor, but Ruth called him back. It seemed to her like desecration, that this man should tread on the same floor that Hurst, her husband—oh, how the thought swelled her heart!—had walked over.

"Not there," she said. "I must mind my father's supper. He will be home in a few minutes."

"Well, I don't much care; the kitchen seems more natural. It is here that we used to sit before the young master found out how well-favored you are, as if he couldn't find comely faces enough at the house, but must come poaching down here on my warren."

"Who are you speaking of? I cannot make it out," faltered Ruth, turning cold.

"Who? As if you didn't know well enough; as if I didn't see you and him talking together thick as two bees this very morning."

"No, no!" protested Ruth, throwing out both her hands. "You could not—you did not!"

"But I did, though, and the gun just trembled of itself in my hand, it so wanted to be at him. If it hadn't been that you seemed offish, and he looked black as a thunder-clap, I couldn't have kept my hand from the trigger."

"That would have been murder," whispered the girl, through her white lips.

"Murder, would it? That's according as one thinks. What do men carry a gun at night for, let me ask you, but to keep the deer and the birds safe from poachers? If they catch them at it, haven't they a right to fire? Well, Ruth, you are my game, and my gun takes care of you as keepers protect the deer. It will be safe to warn the young master of that!"

"I do not know—I cannot understand—"

"Oh, you don't, ha!" broke in the young man, throwing himself into a chair and stretching out his legs on the hearth. "Well, then, I'll tell you a secret about him that'll take the starch out of your pride. You're not the only girl with a pretty face that brings him among my covers!"

"What?"

"Ah, ha! Oh, ho! That wakes you up, does it? I thought so. Nothing like a swoop of spite to bring a girl out of cover."

"I do not understand you," said Ruth, flashing out upon her tormentor with sudden spirit. "What have I to do with anything you are talking about?"

"The other lass, you mean. Not much, of course. It isn't likely he put her in your way."

A burst of indignation, perhaps of something more stinging than that, filled the splendid eyes with fire that Ruth fixed upon her tormentor.

"Do you know—can you even guess that it is my—my—!"

The girl broke her imprudent speech off with a thrill of warning that left the prints of her white teeth on the burning lips which had almost betrayed her. In her terror the insult that followed was almost a relief.

"Sweetheart!" sneered the young man.

She did not heed the word or sneer; both were a proof that her secret was safe as yet.

"One up at the house, one here, and another—well, no matter about her. You understand?"

"You slander an honorable gentleman," said Ruth, controlling herself with a great effort.

"Do I? Ask the Lady Rose, if she ever stoops to speak to you."

"She is a sweet, gracious lady," broke in Ruth, magnanimous in her swift jealousy. "A great lady, who refuses speech or smile to no one."

"Ask her, then, who was out on the terrace this evening, before he came home, robbing the great stone vases of their sweetest flowers for his button-hole!"

Ruth lifted one hand to her bosom, and pressed the golden ring there close to her heart.

Then turning to the young man, who was watching her keenly, she said, with composure:

"Well, why should you or I ask such questions of the young lady? I would no more do that than spy upon her, as you have done!"

Storms looked at her keenly from under his bent brows, and his thin lips closed with a baffled expression.

"Off the scent," he thought. "What is it? She was hot on the chase just now. Has she really doubled on him?"

"It needs no spying to see what goes on up there," he answered, after a moment, waving his head toward the great house. "Grand people like them think we have neither eyes nor ears. They pay us for being without them, and think we earn our wages like dumb cattle. Just as if sharpness went with money. But we do see and hear, when they would be glad to think us blind and dumb!"

The girl made no answer. She longed to question the creature she despised, and had a fierce struggle with her heart, until more honorable feelings put down the swift cravings of jealousy that were wounding her heart, as bees sting a flower while rifling it of honey.

The young man watched her cunningly, but failed to understand her. The jealousy which made him so cruel had no similitude with her finer and keener feelings. He longed to see her break out in a tirade of abuse, or to have her question him broadly, as he wished to answer.

Ruth did nothing of the kind. In the tumult of feelings aroused by his words she remembered all that had been done that day, and, with sudden vividness of recollection, the promise of caution she had made to her husband.

Her husband! She pressed her hand against her bosom, where the wedding-ring lay hid, and a glorified expression came to her face as she turned it toward the firelight, absolutely forgetful that a hateful intruder shared it with her.

Richard Storms was baffled, and a little saddened by the strange beauty in the face his eyes were searching.

"Ruth!" he said at length. "Ruth!"

The girl started. His voice had dragged her out of a dream of heaven. She looked around vaguely on finding herself on earth again, and with him.

"Well," she said, impatiently, "what would you say to me?"

"Just this: when is it to be? I am really tired of waiting."

"Tired of waiting!" said Ruth, impatiently. "Waiting for what?"

"Why, for our wedding-day. What else?"

The proud blood of an empress seemed to flame up into the girl's face; a smile, half rage, half scorn, curved her lips, which, finally, relaxed into a clear, ringing laugh.

"You—you think to marry me!" was her broken exclamation, as the untoward laugh died out.

The young man turned fiery red. The scornfulness of that laugh stung him, and he returned it with interest.

"No wonder you ask," he said, with a sharp, venomous look, from which she shrunk instinctively. "It isn't every honest man that would hold to his bargain, after all these galivantings with the young master."

Ruth turned white as snow, and caught hold of a chair for support. Her evident terror seemed to appease the tormentor, and he continued, with a relenting laugh, "Don't be put about, though. I'm too fond to be jealous, because my sweetheart takes a turn now and then in the moonlight when she thinks no one is looking."

"Your sweetheart! Yours!"

Storms waved his hand, and went on.

"Though, mind me, all this must stop when we're married."

Ruth had no disposition to laugh now. The very mention of Hurst had made a coward of her. Storms saw how pale she was, and came toward her.

"There, now, give us a kiss, and make up. It's all settled between father and the old man, so just be conformable, and I'll say nothing about the young master."

As the young man came toward her, with his arms extended, Ruth drew back, step by step, with such fright and loathing in her eyes that his temper rose again. With startling suddenness he gave a leap, and, flinging one arm around her, attempted to force her averted face to his.

One sharp cry, one look, and Ruth fell to the floor, quivering like a shot bird.

She had seen the door open, and caught one glimpse of her husband's face. Then a powerful blow followed, and Richard Storms went reeling across the kitchen, and struck with a crash against the opposite wall.

Ruth remembered afterward, as one takes up the painful visions of a dream, the deadly venom of those eyes; the gray whiteness of that aquiline face; the specks of foam that flew from those half-open lips. She saw, too, the slow retreat during which those threatening features were turned upon her husband. Then all was blank—she had fainted away.

For some moments it seemed as if the girl were dead, she lay so limp and helpless on her husband's bosom; but the burning words that rose from his lips, the kisses he rained down upon hers, brought a stir of life back to her heart. Awaking with a dim sense of danger, she clung to him, shivering and in tears.

"Where is he? Oh, Walton! is he gone?"

"Gone, the hound! Yes, darling, to his kennel."

"Ah, how he frightened me!"

"But how dare he enter this house?"

"I cannot tell—only—only my father has not come home yet. Oh, I—I hate him. He frightens me. He threatens me."

"Threatens you! When? How?"

"Oh, Walton! he has seen us together. He will bring you into trouble."

"Not easily."

"Your father?"

"Is not a man to listen to the gossip of his servants."

Ruth drew a deep breath. Walton had concealed his real anxiety so well, that her own fears were calmed.

"Come, come," he said; "we must not let this hind embitter the few minutes I can spend with you. Look up, love, and tell me that you are better."

"Oh! I am; but he frightened me so."

"And now?"

Hurst folded the fair girl in his arms, and smoothed her bright hair with a caressing hand.

"Now!" she answered, lifting her mouth, which had grown red again, and timidly returning his kisses. "Now I am safe, and I fear nothing. Oh, mercy! Look!"

"What? Where?"

"The window! That face at the window!"

"It is your fancy, darling. I see nothing there."

"But I saw it. Surely I did. His keen, wicked face. It was close to the glass."

"There, there! It was only the ivy leaves glancing in the moonlight."

"No, no! I saw it. He is waiting for you."

"Let him wait. I shall not stir a step the sooner or later for that."

Ruth began to tremble again. Her eyes were constantly turning toward the window. She scarcely heard the words of endearment with which Hurst strove to reassure her. All at once the old clock filled the house with its brazen warning. It was ten o'clock. The girl sprang to her feet.

"It is time for my father to come. He must not find you here."

Hurst took his hat, and glancing down at his dinner dress, remembered that he would be missed from the drawing-room. Once more he enfolded the girl in his arms, called her by the new endearing name that was so sweet to them both, and finally left her smiling through all her fears.

Ruth stole to the little oriel window, and watched her husband as he turned from the moonlight and entered the shadows of the park. Then she went back to the kitchen and busied herself about the fire.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AN ENCOUNTER.

WHEN Richard Storms left the gardener's cottage, he dashed like a wild beast into the densest thickets of the forest, and tore his way through toward his own home. It gave him a sort of tigerish pleasure to tear at the thickets with his fierce hands, and trample the forest turf beneath his iron-shod heels, for the rage within him was brutal in its thirst for destruction. All at once he stopped short, seemed to remember something and turned back, plunging along at a heavy but swift pace, now through the shadows, now in the moonlight, unconscious of the quiet beauty of either.

It took him but a brief time to reach the cottage, around which he pondered a while, stealing in and out of the tangled vines which hung in thick draperies around the building. At last Ruth saw his face at the kitchen window, and gave a sharp cry that drove him away, more fiercely wrathful than ever, for he had seen the creature he worshipped after a rude fashion giving caresses to another, that he would have gone on his grovelling knees to have secured to himself.

"Jessup promised my father that I should wed her, and it has come to this," he grumbled fiercely, as if tearing the words between his teeth. "On the night I had set aside to win an answer for myself, the young master hustles me out of the door like a dog, and takes the kennel himself. He thinks I am not man enough to bark back when he kicks me, does he? He shall see! He shall see! Bark! Nay, my fine fellow, it shall be biting this time. A growl and a snap isn't enough for kicks and blows."

The wrath of this man was less fiery now, but it had taken a stern, solid strength, more dangerous than the first outburst of passion. He sought no particular path as he left the house, but stamped forward with heavy feet, as if he were trampling down something that he hated viciously, now and then gesticulating in the moonlight, till his very shadow seemed to be fighting its way along the turf.

All at once he came upon another man, who had left the great chestnut avenue, and turned into a side path, which led to the gardener's passage. The two men stopped, and one spoke cheerfully.

"Why, good-night, Dick. This is late to be out. Anything going wrong?"

"Wrong!" said the other, hoarsely. "Yes, wrong enough to cost a man his life some day. Go up yonder, and ask your daughter Ruth what it is. She'll tell, no doubt—ask her!"

Richard Storms, after flinging these words at his father's friend, attempted to push by him on the path; but Jessup stood resolutely in his way.

"What is all this, my lad? Nay, now, you haven't been to the cottage while I was away, and frightened the girl about what we were talking of. I should take that unfriendly, Dick. Our Ruth is a bit dainty, and should have had time to think over such matters."

"Dainty! I should think so. She looks high in her sweethearting; I must say that for her."

"What is it you are saying of my daughter?" cried Jessup, doubling his great brown fist, unconsciously.

"I say that a man like me has a chance of getting more kicks than kisses when he seeks her," answered Dick, with a sneer.

"And serves him right, if he dared to ask such things of her mother's child," said Jessup, growing angry.

"But what if he only asked, honest fashion, for an honest wife, as I did, and got kicks in return?"

"Kicks! Why, man, who was there to give them, and I away?" questioned the gardener, astonished.

"One who shall pay for it!" was the answer that came hissing through the young man's lips.

"Of course, one don't give kicks and expect farthings back; but who has got up pluck to try this with you, Dick? He must be mad to dare it."

"He is mad!" answered Storms, grinding his teeth. "Mad or not, no man but the master's son would have dared it."

"The master's son! Are you drunk or crazy, Dick Storms?"

"I almost think both. Who can tell?" muttered Dick. "But it's not with drink."

"The master's son! but where—when?"

"At your own house, where he has been more than once, when he thought sure to find Ruth alone."

"Dick Storms, this is a lie."

Dick burst into a hoarse laugh.

"A lie, is it? Go up yonder, now. Walk quick, and you'll see whether it is the truth or not."

Jessup rushed forward a step or two, then came back, as if ashamed of the action.

"Nay, there is no need. I'll not help you belie my own child."

"Belie her, is it? I say, Bill Jessup, not half an hour ago, I saw Ruth, your daughter, with her head on the young master's bosom, and her mouth red with his kisses. If you don't believe this, go and see for yourself."

The florid face of William Jessup turned to marble in the moonlight, and a fierce, hot flame leaped to his eyes.

"I will not walk a pace quicker, or be made to spy on my girl, by anything you can say, Dick; not if it were to save my own life; but I like you, lad—your father and I are fast friends. We meant that, by-and-by, you and Ruth should come together."

Storms flung up his head with an insulting sneer.

"Together! Not if every hair on her head was weighed down with sovereigns. I am an honest man, William Jessup, and will take an honest woman home to my mother, or take none."

Before the words left his lips, Richard Storms received a blow that sent him with his face upward across the forest path; and William Jessup was walking with great strides toward his own cottage.

It was seldom that Jessup gave way to such passion as had overcome him now, and he had not walked a dozen paces before he regretted it with considerable self-upbraiding.

"The lad is jealous of every one that looks at my lass, and speaks out of range because she is a bit offish with him. Poor darling, she has no mother; and the thought of marrying frightens her. It troubles me, too. Sometimes I feel a spite toward the lad, for wanting to take her from me. It makes me restless to think of it. I wonder if any living man ever gave up his daughter to a sweetheart without a grip of pain at the heart? I think it wasn't so much the mad things he said that made my fist so unmanageable, for that come of too much drink, of course; but since he has begun to press this matter, I'm getting heartsore about losing the girl."

With these thoughts in his mind, Jessup came within sight of his own home, and paused in front of it.

How cool and pleasant it looked in the moonlight, with the shadowy vines flickering over it, and a golden light from the kitchen window brightening the dew upon them into crystal drops! The very tranquillity soothed the disturbed man before he entered the porch.

"I wonder if it'll ever be the same again when she is gone," he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, and drawing the hand that had struck down young Storms across his eyes. "No, no; I must not expect that."

CHAPTER XIX.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

RUTH did not come forth to receive her father. This was strange, for a trip to London, with these simple people, was a great event, and it seemed to Jessup as if he had been gone a year.

When he entered the kitchen, Ruth was busy at the table moving the dishes with unsteady hands; but when he spoke, she came forward with breathless eagerness, and made herself very busy taking off his dusty things, which she shook, and folded with wonderful care.

Spite of his utter disbelief in the coarse accusations made by Storms in the park, Jessup watched his daughter anxiously. It seemed to him that she looked paler than usual, and that all her movements were suspiciously restless. Besides this, he observed, with a sinking heart, that her eyes never once met his with their own frank smile.

Could it be that there was some shadow of truth in what Storms had said? He would not believe it.

"Come, father, the posset is ready. I have been keeping it warm."

Ruth stood on the hearth then, with the antique silver posset-cup, which had been his grandmother's, in her hand. The firelight was full upon her, concealing the pallor of her face with its golden flicker. Surely there could be nothing wrong under that sweet look.

The gardener gave a great sigh of relief as he accepted this thought, and his anger toward Dick Storms grew deep and bitter.

"Come, lass," he said, with more than usual affection, "sit down here by my side. The posset is rare and good; while I eat it, you shall tell me of all that has been done since I went away."

All that had been done since he went away! Would Ruth ever dare to tell her father that? The very thought sent up a rush of blood to her face.

"Oh, father! there is little to be done when you are away. I did not even care to cook my own supper."

"Ah! well, take it now, child," said the good man, pouring half his warm posset into an old china bowl, and pushing it toward her.

"No, no, father, I am not hungry. I think the cooking of food takes away one's appetite."

"Nay, eat. It is lonesome work, with no one to help me," said the father, who certainly had no cause to complain of his own appetite. Ruth stirred the posset languidly with her spoon, and strove to swallow a little; but the effort almost choked her. It might be fancy; but she could not help thinking that her father was furtively regarding her all the time, and the idea filled her with dismay.

Something of the same feeling possessed her father. Inherent kindness made him peculiarly sensitive, and he did not know how to question his daughter of the things that disturbed him, without wounding her and himself too.

In this perplexity, he ate with that ravenous haste which sometimes springs from an unconsciousness of what we are doing when under the pressure of great mental excitement. He was astonished when his spoon scraped on the bottom of that silver posset-cup. He sat for a moment embarrassed and uncertain how to begin. Where the feelings of his daughter were concerned, Jessup was a coward; to him she had been, from her very babyhood, a creature to worship and care for with a sort of tender reverence. So, with cowardice born of too much love, he thought to cheat himself, and bade her bring the little carpet-bag that had been his companion to London, and which he had dropped near the door.

Ruth, glad of anything that promised to distract her mind from its anxieties, brought the bag, and stood over her father while he unlocked it.

"See, child," he said, taking out a parcel done up in filmy paper, "I have brought some fill-falls from London, thinking my lass would be glad of them. Look, now!"

Here Jessup unrolled a ribbon, which streamed half across the room, as he shook out its scarlet waves.

"Isn't that something like, now?"

"Oh, it is beautiful!" cried the girl, with true feminine delight. "My dear, dear father!"

"I remembered—but no matter about that. My little Ruth is like a rose, and must have color like one. See what I have brought to go with the ribbon."

"White muslin," cried Ruth, in an ecstasy of delight. "Fine enough for the Lady Rose. How beautifully the scarlet sash will loop it up! Oh, father, who told you how well these things would go together?"

"I guessed it one day when the Lady Rose came here with a lot of stuff like that, puffed and looped with a ribbon bright as the field-poppies about her. You didn't know then, my lass, that your father felt like crying too, when he saw tears in his child's eyes, because she craved a fine dress and bonny colors for herself, and never thought to get it. There, now, you must get the best seamstress in the village to make it."

"No, no! I will make it with my own hands. Oh, father! father! how good, how kind you are!"

Dropping the sash and the muslin from her hold, Ruth threw her arms around Jessup's neck, and, bursting into tears, laid her head upon his shoulder.

"So, so! That will never do," cried the kind-hearted man, smoothing the girl's hair with his great hand, tenderly, as if he were afraid his very fondness might hurt her. "If you cry so, I shall turn the key, and lock all the other things up."

Ruth lifted her sweet face, all bedewed with penitent tears, and laid it close to the weather-beaten cheek of the man.

"Oh, father! don't be so good to me! It breaks my heart!"

Jessup took her face between his hands, and kissed it on the forehead, then pushed her pleasantly on one side, and thrust his hand into the bag again. This time it was drawn forth with a pretty pair of high-heeled boots, all stitched with silk, and circled about the ankles with a wreath of exquisite embroidery.

"There, now, we will leave the rest till to-morrow," he said, closing the box with a mysterious look. "Only say that you are pleased with these."

"Pleased! Oh, father, it is the dress of a lady!"

"Well, even so. One day my Ruth may be next door to that," said Jessup, putting forth all his affectionate craft. "Farmer Storms is a warm man, and Dick is his only son. It is the lad's own right if he sometimes brings his gun and shoots our game—his father has an interest in it, you know. The master has no right over his farm, and birds swarm there."

Jessup stopped suddenly, for Ruth stood before him white and still as marble, the ribbon which she had taken from the floor streaming from her hand in vivid contrast with the swift pallor that had settled upon her.

"Lass! Ruth, I say! What has come over you?" cried out the gardener, in alarm. "What have I done to make you turn so white all in a minute?"

"Done! Nothing, father—nothing!" gasped the girl.

"But you are ill!"

"Yes, a little; but nothing to—to trouble you so."

Ruth stood a moment after this, with one hand on her temple, then she turned, with a show of strength, to her father.

"What were you saying just now about farmer Storms, and—and his son? I don't think I quite understood, did I?"

Jessup was now almost as white as his daughter. Her emotion kindled up a gleam of suspicion, which had hung about him in spite of himself, though he had left Richard Storms prostrate across the forest path for having inspired it.

"Ruth, has not Dick Storms told you to-night that both he and his father are getting impatient to have you at the farm?" he questioned, in a low voice.

"Dick—Dick Storms, father!"

"I ask you, Ruth. Has he been here, and did he tell you?"

"He was here, father," faltered the girl.

"And he asked you?"

"He asked me to be his wife," answered the girl, with a shudder.

"Well!"

"His wife at once; and you promised that he should not come until I was better prepared. Oh, father, it was cruel. He seemed to take it for granted that I must be whatever he wished."

"That was ill-timed; but Dick has been kept back, and he is so fond of you, Ruth."

"Fond of me? Of me? No, no! The thought is awful."

"It was his loving impatience that broke forth at the wrong time. Nothing could be worse; but you were not very harsh with him, Ruth?"

"I could not help it, father, he was so rude."

"Hang the fellow! I hope he won't get over the buffet I gave him in one while. The fool should have known better than treat my daughter with so little ceremony. She is of a daintier sort than he often mates with. He deserves all he has gotten from her and from me."

While these thoughts were troubling Jessup's mind, Ruth stood before him with tears swelling under her eyelids, till the long, black lashes were heavy with them. They touched the father's heart.

"Don't fret, child. A few hasty words in answer to over rough wooing can easily be made up for. The young man was sorely put about; but I rated him soundly for coming here when I was away. He will think twice before he does it again."

"He must never do it again. Never—never!" cried Ruth, desperately. "See to that, father. He never must."

"Ruth!"

"Oh, father, do not ask me ever to see this man again. I cannot—I cannot!"

"Hush, child—hush! It is only a quarrel, which must not break the compact of a lifetime. Till now, you and Dick have always been good friends."

"Have we? I don't know. Not lately, I'm sure; and we never, never can be anything like friends again."

"Ruth!"

The girl lifted her great wild eyes to her father, and dropped them again. She was too much terrified for tears now.

"Ruth, was any person here to-night beyond Dick?"

The girl did not answer. She seemed turning to stone. Her silence irritated the poor man, who stood watching like a criminal for her reply. He spoke more sharply.