't at all satisfied with the touch of velvet they
had put on it. After that some one else came in and Mrs. Lawrence was
called away. Ruth left without saying what she had come to say. She knew
now that she would not say it.

She went home seeing that she must go through with the wedding. It was
too late now to do anything else. Edith would break down--her pleasure
in her wedding spoiled; no, Edith must be spared--helped. She must do
this for Edith. No matter what people thought of her, no matter what
Edith herself thought--though _wouldn't_ she understand? Ruth considered
with a tortured wistfulness--the thing to do now was to go through with
it. Edith must look beautiful at her wedding; her happiness must be
unmarred. Later, when she was away with Will--happy--she could bear it
better. And she would understand that Ruth had wished to spare her; had
done it to help her. She held that thought with her--and drove ahead.

There were moments in those last two days at home when it seemed that
now her heart was indeed breaking: a kindly note in the voice of her
father or mother--one of Ted's teasing jokes--little requests from her
grandfather; then doing things she had done for years and knowing while
doing them that she would not be doing them any more--the last time she
cut the flowers, and then that last night when she went to bed in her
own room, the room she had had ever since old enough to have a room of
her own. She lay there that night and listened to the branches of the
great oak tapping the house. She had heard that sound all her life; it
was associated with all the things of her life; it seemed to be speaking
for all those things--mourning for them. But the closest she came to
actual breaking down was that last day when her dog, laying his head
upon her knee, looked with trust and affection up into her eyes. As she
laid her hand upon his head his eyes seemed to speak for all the love
she had known through all the years. It seemed she could not bear it,
that her heart could not bear it, that she would rather die. But she did
bear it; she had that terrible power for bearing.

If only she had told her mother, they said over and over again. But if
she told her mother she would not go--that was how she saw that; they
would not let her; or rather, she would have no strength left to fight
through their efforts to keep her. And then how could she tell her
mother when her mother would never in the world understand? She did