The Squire's Daughter Part 70

"Does the doctor say there is no hope?"

"He has none himself."

William was listening with every sense alert. He knew by some subtle instinct, some spiritual telepathy, that Ruth was near. He caught her whisper in the hall, he knew her footstep when she came quickly up the stairs, and the beating of his heart seemed to get beyond all bounds.

He was too weak to raise himself in bed, but his eyes were strained toward the door.

"You will leave me when she comes," he said to the nurse as soon as he heard Ruth's voice in the hall, and directly the door was pushed open the nurse disappeared.

Ruth walked straight up to the bedside without faltering. William feebly raised his wasted hand, and she took it in both hers. She was very composed. She wondered at herself, and was barely conscious of the effort she was making.

He was the first to break the silence, and he spoke with a great effort, and with many pauses.

"Will you not sit there, where I can see you?" he said, indicating a chair close to the bedside. "It is very good of you to come. I thought you would, for you have always been kind to me."

The tears came very near her eyes, but she resolutely raised her hand to hide them from William.

"You and your brother have been my dearest friends," he went on. "Ralph is a n.o.ble fellow, and I do not wonder that you are proud of him. It has been a great joy to me to know him--to know you both."

"That feeling has been mutual," Ruth struggled to say; but William scarcely waited to hear her out. Perhaps he felt that what he had to say must be said quickly.

"I thought I would like to tell you how much I have valued your friendship--there can be no harm in that, can there?"

"Why, no," she interposed.

"But that is not all," he went on. "I want to say something more, and there surely can be no harm in saying it now. I am nearing the end, the doctor says."

"Say anything you like," she interrupted, in a great sob of emotion.

"You cannot be angry with me now," he continued. "You might have been had I told you sooner. I know I have been very presumptuous, very daring, but I could not help it. You stole my heart unconsciously. I loved you in those dark days when you lived in the little cottage at St.

Goram. I wanted to help you then. And oh, Ruth, I have loved you ever since--not with the blind, unreasoning pa.s.sion of youth, but with the deep, abiding reverence of mature years. My love for you is the sweetest, purest, strongest thing I have ever cherished; and now that I am going hence the impulse became so strong that I could not resist telling you."

She turned to him suddenly, her eyes swimming in tears.

"Oh, William----" Then her voice faltered.

"You are not angry with me, Ruth?" he questioned, almost in a whisper.

"Angry with you? Oh, William----But why did you not tell me before?"

"I was afraid to tell you, Ruth--afraid to put an end to our friendship."

She knelt down on the floor by his bedside and laid her face on his hand, and he felt her hot tears falling like rain.

For awhile neither of them spoke again; then she raised her head suddenly, and with a pitiful smile on her face she said--

"You must not die, William!"

"Not die?" he questioned.

"No, no! For my sake you must get better," and she looked eagerly and earnestly into his eyes, as though she would compel a.s.sent to her words.

"Why for your sake?" he asked slowly and musingly.

"Why? Oh, William, do you not understand? Can you not see----"

"Surely--surely," he said, a great light breaking over his face, "you cannot mean that--that----"

"But I do mean it," she interrupted. "How could I mean anything else?"

He half rose in bed, as if inspired with new strength, then lay back again with a weary and long-drawn sigh. She rose quickly to her feet, and bent over him with a little cry. A pallor so deathly stole over his face that she thought he was dying.

After a few moments he rallied again, and smiled rea.s.suringly. Then the nurse came back into the room.

"You will come again?" he whispered, holding out his hand.

She answered him with a smile, and then hurried down the stairs.

She gave no hint to Ralph of what had pa.s.sed between them, and during the journey home through the darkness very little was said; but she walked with a more buoyant step than during the outward journey, and in her eye there was a brighter light, though Ralph did not see it.

She scarcely slept at all that night. She spent most of the time on her knees in prayer. Before Ralph got down to breakfast she had been to Veryan and back again. She did not allude, however, to this second journey. William was still alive, and in much the same condition.

For nearly two days he dwelt in the valley of the shadow, and no one could tell whether the angel of life or of death would prevail. The doctor looked in every few hours, and did all that human skill could do.

William, though too spent to talk, and almost too weak to open his eyes, was acutely conscious of what was taking place.

To the onlookers it seemed as if he was pa.s.sing into a condition of coma, but it was not so. He was fighting for life with all the will power he possessed. He had something to live for now. A new hope was in his heart, a new influence was breathing upon him. So he fought back the destroying angel inch by inch, and in the end prevailed.

There came a day when Ruth again sat by his bedside, holding his hand.

"I am getting better, sweetheart," he said, in a whisper.

"Yes, William."

"Your love and prayers have pulled me through."

"I could not let you go," she said.

"G.o.d has been very merciful," he answered reverently. "Next to His love the most wonderful thing is yours."

"Why should it be wonderful?" she asked, with a smile.

"You are so beautiful," he answered, "and I am so unworthy, and so----"

But she laid her hand upon his mouth and smothered the end of the sentence.

When once he had turned the corner he got better rapidly, but long before he was able to leave the house all St. Goram knew that Ruth Penlogan had promised to be his wife.

Ralph saw very little of his sister in those days, she spent so much of her time in going and coming between Hillside and Veryan. Fortunately the affairs of the mine kept his hands occupied and his thoughts busy, otherwise he would have felt himself neglected and alone.