nificance of her
words. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly. Her plain black
dress, simply made though it was, showed no defect of figure. Her
throat was soft and white. The curve of her body was even graceful.
The revelation of these things came as a shock to Arnold, yet it was
curious that he found a certain pleasure in it.

"I had forgotten, Ruth," he said slowly, "but does it matter? You
have no one in the world but Isaac, and I have no one in the world
at all. Don't you think we can afford to do what seems sensible?"

Her eyes never left his face. She made no sign either of assent or
dissent.

"Arnold," she declared, "it is true that I am an outcast. I have
scarcely a relative in the world. But what you say about yourself is
hard to believe. I have never asked you questions because it is not
my business, but there are many little things by which one tells. I
think that somewhere you have a family belonging to you with a name,
even if, for any reason, you do not choose just now to claim them."

He made no direct reply. He watched for some moments a white-sailed
boat come tacking down the narrow strip of river.

"I am my own master, Ruth," he said; "I have no one else to please
or to consider. I understand what you have just told me, but if I
gave you my word that I would try and be to you what Isaac might
have been if he had not been led away by these strange ideas,
wouldn't you trust me, Ruth?"

"It isn't that!" she exclaimed. "Trust you? Why, you know that I
would! It isn't that I mind for myself either what people would
say--or anything, but I am thinking of your new friends, of your
future. If they knew that you were living down in the country with a
girl, even though she were an invalid, who was no relation at all,
don't you think that it might make a difference?"

"Of course not," he replied, "and, in any case, what should I care?
It would be the making of you, Ruth. You would be able to pick up
your strength, so that when our money-box is full you would be able
to have that operation and never dare to call yourself an invalid
again."

She half closed her eyes. The spell of summer was in the air, the
spell of life was stirring slowly in her frozen blood.

"Ah! Arnold," she murmured, "I do not think that you must talk like
that. It makes me feel so much like yielding. Somehow, the dreams
out here seem even more wonderful than the visions which come
floating up the river. There's more life here.