nearly. There!' and she set her little
boot across the basin, and crushed it. 'Not another drop shall they have
from you. Is Annie such a fool as that? And Lizzie, like a zany, at her
books! And killing her brother, between them!'

I was surprised to see Ruth excited; her character being so calm and
quiet. And I tried to soothe her with my feeble hand, as now she knelt
before me.

'Dear cousin, the doctor must know best. Annie says so, every day. What
has he been brought up for?'

'Brought up for slaying and murdering. Twenty doctors killed King
Charles, in spite of all the women. Will you leave it to me, John? I
have a little will of my own; and I am not afraid of doctors. Will you
leave it to me, dear John? I have saved your Lorna's life. And now I
will save yours; which is a far, far easier business.'

'You have saved my Lorna's life! What do you mean by talking so?'

'Only what I say, Cousin John. Though perhaps I overprize my work. But
at any rate she says so.'

'I do not understand,' I said, falling back with bewilderment; 'all
women are such liars.'

'Have you ever known me tell a lie?' Ruth in great indignation--more
feigned, I doubt, than real--'your mother may tell a story, now and then
when she feels it right; and so may both your sisters. But so you cannot
do, John Ridd; and no more than you can I do it.'

If ever there was virtuous truth in the eyes of any woman, it was now
in Ruth Huckaback's: and my brain began very slowly to move, the heart
being almost torpid from perpetual loss of blood.

'I do not understand,' was all I could say for a very long time.

'Will you understand, if I show you Lorna? I have feared to do it, for
the sake of you both. But now Lorna is well enough, if you think that
you are, Cousin John. Surely you will understand, when you see your
wife.'

Following her, to the very utmost of my mind and heart, I felt that all
she said was truth; and yet I could not make it out. And in her last
few words there was such a power of sadness rising through the cover
of gaiety, that I said to myself, half in a dream, 'Ruth is very
beautiful.'

Before I had time to listen much for the approach of footsteps, Ruth
came back, and behind her Lorna; coy as if of her bridegroom; and
hanging back with her beauty. Ruth banged the door, and ran away; and
Lorna stood before me.

But she did not stand for an instant, when she saw what I was like. At
the risk of all thick bandages, and upsett