n which
she lay still, wan and death-like. She almost hoped the swoon that
hung around her might be Death, and in that imagination she opened
her eyes to take a last look at her boy. She saw him pale and
terror-stricken; and pity for his affright roused her, and made her
forget herself in the wish that he should not see her death, if she
were indeed dying.

"Go to Aunt Faith!" whispered she; "I am weary, and want sleep."

Leonard arose slowly and reluctantly. She tried to smile upon him,
that what she thought would be her last look might dwell in his
remembrance as tender and strong; she watched him to the door; she
saw him hesitate, and return to her. He came back to her, and said in
a timid, apprehensive tone:

"Mother--will _they_ speak to me about--it?"

Ruth closed her eyes, that they might not express the agony she felt,
like a sharp knife, at this question. Leonard had asked it with a
child's desire of avoiding painful and mysterious topics,--from no
personal sense of shame as she understood it, shame beginning thus
early, thus instantaneously.

"No," she replied. "You may be sure they will not."

So he went. But now she would have been thankful for the
unconsciousness of fainting; that one little speech bore so much
meaning to her hot, irritable brain. Mr and Miss Benson, all in their
house, would never speak to the boy--but in his home alone would he
be safe from what he had already learnt to dread. Every form in which
shame and opprobrium could overwhelm her darling, haunted her. She
had been exercising strong self-control for his sake ever since she
had met him at the house-door; there was now a reaction. His presence
had kept her mind on its perfect balance. When that was withdrawn,
the effect of the strain of power was felt. And athwart the
fever-mists that arose to obscure her judgment, all sorts of
will-o'-the-wisp plans flittered before her; tempting her to this and
that course of action--to anything rather than patient endurance--to
relieve her present state of misery by some sudden spasmodic effort,
that took the semblance of being wise and right. Gradually all
her desires, all her longing, settled themselves on one point.
What had she done--what could she do, to Leonard, but evil? If she
were away, and gone no one knew where--lost in mystery, as if she
were dead--perhaps the cruel hearts might relent, and show pity
on Leonard; while her perpetual presence would but call up the
remembrance of