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"Pardon," she entreated, forgetting Reuther's presence in her consciousness of the misery she had brought upon her benefactor. "I never meant I never dreamed " "Oh, no apologies!" Was this the judge speaking? The tone was an admonitory, not a suffering one. It was not even that of a man humiliated or distressed.
Ever since the discovery which had changed Reuther's prospects, she had instinctively looked to this one source for aid and sympathy. Her reasons she has already given.
A fresh start with the prospect of Reuther's companionship, inspires me with more hope for my next venture. A night of stars, seen through swaying tree-tops whose leaves crisping to their fall, murmured gently of vanished hopes and approaching death.
Was she mad! She thought so for a moment; then she laid down the knife close against the cap and contemplated them both for more minutes than she ever reckoned. And the stillness, which had been profound, became deeper yet. Not even Reuther's clock sounded its small note. The candle fluttering low in its socket roused her at last from her abstraction.
I have brought her to Shelby where to our own surprise and Reuther's great happiness, we have been taken in by Judge Ostrander, an act of kindness for which we are very grateful." Miss Weeks got up, took down one of her rarest treasures from an old etagere standing in one corner and laid it in Mrs. Scoville's hand. "For your daughter," she declared. "Noble girl! I hope she will be happy."
"A carriage had driven up; and we heard his step; but it was not the step of a bridegroom, Judge Ostrander, nor was the gentleman he left behind him at the kerb, the friend who was to stand up with him. To Reuther, innocent of all deception, this occasioned only surprise, but to me it meant the end of Reuther's marriage and of my own hopes.
It was Reuther's first experience of so precipitous a climb, and under other circumstances she might have been timid; but in her present heroic mood, it was all a part of her great adventure, and as such accepted. The lawyer eyed her with growing admiration. He had not miscalculated her pluck. As they were making a turn to gain the summit, they heard Mr. Sloan's voice behind them.
When the judge at last came forth, it was at Reuther's bidding. A gentleman wished to see him in the parlour. This was so unprecedented, even of late when the ladies did receive some callers, that he stopped short after his first instinctive step, to ask her if the gentleman had given his name.
Withdrawing from the window, she crept again to Reuther's room and peered carefully in. Innocence was asleep at last. Not a movement disturbed the closed lids on the wax-like cheek. Even the breath came so softly that it hardly lifted the youthful breast.
"Quite right," replied the countess in as low a voice; "I suppose he has sung of kings and heroes till he cannot help assuming their step and demeanor!" "But how did he come by those eyes?" answered the queen. "If singing of Reuther's 'beamy gaze' have so richly endowed his own, by getting him to teach me his art, I may warble myself into a complexion as fair as any northern beauty!"
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