lonely life. "I know now," he wrote,
"just how much there is to bear, and how to bear it. Strange men come
between us, but you are not far off when I am alone on these plains.
There is a place where I can always meet you, and I know that you have
found it,--under the big ash-tree by the barn. I think I am nearly
always there about sundown, and on moonshiny nights, because we are then
nearest together; and I never sleep without leaving you half my blanket.
When I first begin to wake I always feel your breath, so we are never
really parted for long. I do not know that I can change much; it is not
easy; it is like making up your mind to have different colored eyes
and hair, and I can only get sunburnt and wear a full beard. But we are
hardly as unhappy as we feared to be; mother came the other night, in a
dream, and took us on her knees. Oh, come to me, Jonathan, but for one
day! No, you will not find me; I am going across the Plains!"

And Jonathan and Ruth? They loved each other tenderly; no external
trouble visited them; their home was peaceful and pure; and yet, every
room and stairway and chair was haunted by a sorrowful ghost. As a
neighbor said after visiting them, "There seemed to be something lost."
Ruth saw how constantly and how unconsciously Jonathan turned to see
his own every feeling reflected in the missing eyes; how his hand sought
another, even while its fellow pressed hers; how half-spoken words,
day and night, died upon his lips, because they could not reach the
twin-ear. She knew not how it came, but her own nature took upon itself
the same habit. She felt that she received a less measure of love than
she gave--not from Jonathan, in whose whole, warm, transparent heart no
other woman had ever looked, but something of her own passed beyond him
and never returned. To both their life was like one of those conjurer's
cups, seemingly filled with red wine, which is held from the lips by the
false crystal hollow.

Neither spoke of this: neither dared to speak. The years dragged out
their slow length, with rare and brief messages from David. Three
children were in the house, and still peace and plenty laid their signs
upon its lintels. But at last Ruth, who had been growing thinner and
paler ever since the birth of her first boy, became seriously ill.
Consumption was hers by inheritance, and it now manifested itself in a
form which too surely foretold the result. After the physician had
gone, leaving his fatal