nd figure were all changed,
that voice was the same which had touched her girlish heart, which
had spoken most tender words of love, which had won, and wrecked her,
and which she had last heard in the low mutterings of fever. She
dared not look round to see the figure of him who spoke, dark as it
was. She knew he was there--she heard him speak in the manner in
which he used to address strangers years ago; perhaps she answered
him, perhaps she did not--God knew. It seemed as if weights were tied
to her feet--as if the steadfast rocks receded--as if time stood
still;--it was so long, so terrible, that path across the reeling
sand.

At the foot of the rocks they separated. Mr Bradshaw, afraid lest
dinner should cool, preferred the shorter way for himself and his
friends. On Elizabeth's account, the girls were to take the longer
and easier path, which wound upwards through a rocky field, where
larks' nests abounded, and where wild thyme and heather were now
throwing out their sweets to the soft night air.

The little girls spoke in eager discussion of the strangers. They
appealed to Ruth, but Ruth did not answer, and they were too
impatient to convince each other to repeat the question. The first
little ascent from the sands to the field surmounted, Ruth sat
down suddenly and covered her face with her hands. This was so
unusual--their wishes, their good, was so invariably the rule of
motion or of rest in their walks--that the girls, suddenly checked,
stood silent and affrighted in surprise. They were still more
startled when Ruth wailed aloud some inarticulate words.

"Are you not well, dear Mrs Denbigh?" asked Elizabeth, gently,
kneeling down on the grass by Ruth.

She sat facing the west. The low watery twilight was on her face as
she took her hands away. So pale, so haggard, so wild and wandering a
look the girls had never seen on human countenance before.

"Well! what are you doing here with me? You should not be with me,"
said she, shaking her head slowly.

They looked at each other.

"You are sadly tired," said Elizabeth, soothingly. "Come home, and
let me help you to bed. I will tell papa you are ill, and ask him to
send for a doctor."

Ruth looked at her as if she did not understand the meaning of her
words. No more she did at first. But by-and-by the dulled brain began
to think most vividly and rapidly, and she spoke in a sharp way which
deceived the girls into a belief that nothing had been the matter.