The Squire's Daughter Part 33

"No, no. She would be happier if she were. Oh, Ralph, it breaks my heart. I wish we had all died when father was taken."

"But where is she, Ruth? What has happened? Do tell me."

"She is in the workhouse, Ralph."

He sprang to his feet as though he had been shot.

"Ruth, you lie!" he said, almost in a whisper.

She began to sob again, and he stood looking at her with white, drawn face, and a fierce, pa.s.sionate gleam in his eyes.

For several moments no other word pa.s.sed between them. Then he sat down by her side again.

"There was no help for it," she sobbed at length. "And mother was quite content and eager to go."

"And you allowed it, Ruth," he said, in a tone of reproach.

"What could I do, Ralph?" she questioned plaintively. "We had spent all, and the landlord stopped us from selling any more furniture. The parish would allow her half a crown a week, which would not pay the rent, and I could get nothing to do."

He gulped down a lump that had risen in his throat, and clenched his hands, but he did not speak.

"She said there was no disgrace in going into the House," Ruth went on; "that father had paid rates for more than five-and-twenty years, and that she had a right to all she would get, and a good deal more."

"Rights go for nothing in this world," he said bitterly. "It is the strong who win."

"Mrs. Menire told me this morning that her son would have trusted us to any amount and for any length of time if he had only known."

"You did not ask him?"

"Mother would never consent," she replied. "Besides, Mr. Menire is a comparative stranger to us."

"That is true, and yet he has been a true friend to me to-day."

"I hesitated about accepting his hospitality," Ruth answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "He sent word yesterday that he had learned you were to be liberated this morning, and that he was going to Bodmin to meet you and bring you back, and that his mother would be glad to offer me hospitality if I would like to meet you here."

"It was very kind of him, Ruth; but where are you living?"

"I am in service, Ralph."

"No!"

"It is quite true. I was bound to earn my living somehow."

He laughed a bitter laugh.

"Prison, workhouse, and domestic service! What may we get to next, do you think?"

"But we have not gone into debt or cheated anybody, and we've kept our consciences clean, Ralph."

"Yes, ours is a case of virtue rewarded," he answered cynically.

"Honesty sent to prison, and thrift to the workhouse."

"But we haven't done with life and the world yet."

"You think there are lower depths in store for us?"

"I hope not. We may begin to rise now. Let us not despair, Ralph.

Suffering should purify and strengthen us."

"I don't see how suffering wrongly or unjustly can do anybody any good,"

he answered moodily.

"Nor can I at present. Perhaps we shall see later on. There is one great joy amid all our grief. Your name has been cleared."

"Yes, that is something--better than a verdict of acquittal, eh?" and a softer light came into his eyes.

"I would rather be in our place, Ralph, bitter and humiliating as it is, than take the place of the oppressor."

"You are thinking of Sir John Hamblyn?" he questioned.

"They say he is being oppressed now," she answered, after a pause.

"By whom?"

"The money-lenders. Rumour says that he has lost heavily on the Turf and on the Stock Exchange--whatever that may be--and that he is hard put to it to keep his creditors at bay."

"That may account in some measure for his hardness to others."

"He hoped to retrieve his position, it is said, by marrying his daughter to Lord Probus," Ruth went on, "but she refuses to keep her promise."

"What?" he exclaimed, with a sudden gasp.

"How much of the gossip is true, of course, n.o.body knows, or rather how much of it isn't true--for it is certain she has refused to marry him; and Lord Probus is so mad that he refused to speak to Sir John or have anything to do with him."

Ralph smiled broadly.

"What has become of Miss Dorothy is not quite clear. Some people say that Sir John has sent her to a convent school in France. Others say that she has gone off of her own free will, and taken a situation as a governess under an a.s.sumed name."

"Are you sure she isn't at the Manor?" he questioned eagerly.

"Quite sure. The servants talk very freely about it. Sir John stormed and swore, and threatened all manner of things, but she held her own. He shouted so loudly sometimes that they could not help hearing what he said. Miss Dorothy was very calm, but very determined. He taunted her with being in love with somebody else----"

"No!"

"She must have had a very hard time of it by what the servants say. It is to be hoped she has peace now she has got away."

"Sir John is a brute," Ralph said bitterly. "He has no mercy on anybody, not even on his own flesh and blood."

"Isn't it always true that 'with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again'?" Ruth questioned, looking up into his face.