They met the country people dropping homewards. No Ruth was
there. She and her pupils had returned by the field-way, as Mr.
Bradshaw informed his guests at dinner-time. Mr. Donne was very
captious all through dinner. He thought it never would be over,
and cursed Hickson's interminable stories, which were told on
purpose to amuse him. His heart gave a fierce bound when he saw
her in the drawing-room with the little girls.
She was reading to them--with how sick and trembling a heart no
words can tell. But she could master and keep down outward signs
of her emotion. An hour more to-night (part of which was to be
spent in family prayer, and all in the safety of company),
another hour in the morning (when all would be engaged in the
bustle of departure)--if, during this short space of time, she
could not avoid speaking to him, she could at least keep him at
such a distance as to make him feel that henceforward her world
and his belonged to separate systems, wide as the heavens apart.
By degrees she felt that he was drawing near to where she stood.
He was by the table examining the books that lay upon it. Mary
and Elizabeth drew off a little space, awe-stricken by the future
member for Eccleston. As he bent his head over a book he said, "I
implore you; five minutes alone."
The little girls could not hear; but Ruth, hemmed in so that no
escape was possible, did hear.
She took sudden courage, and said in a clear voice--
"Will you read the whole passage aloud? I do not remember it.
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