THE last was but the beginning of many talks which those two sisters held together concerning the meaning of the promises which Christ had made to his children. During the time Ruth received and accepted some new ideas; but it must be admitted that it was her intellect which accepted them, rather than her heart. She acknowledged that the Lord had plainly said his grace was sufficient for them, and that, having been tempted, he was able to succor those who were tempted; and that there should no temptation take his children except such as they were able to bear, because the faithful God would provide a way of escape. All these, I say, she admitted; they were plainly written in his word and must mean what they said. Still she went on, being tempted and yielding to the temptation, struggling against the gloom and unrest of her lot—struggling fiercely against the providence which had come between her and the Father, whom she began to realize she had worshiped rather than loved—struggling, fighting, baffled, wounded, defeated—only to rise up and struggle afresh, all the while admitting with her clear brain-power that he said: “As thy day, so shall thy strength be.” Why did she not have the strength? She dimly questioned with herself, occasionally, the why; she even deemed herself ill-treated because none of the promised strength came to her; but she passed over the searching question of the Lord to his waiting suppliant: “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” Had the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Ruth in bodily presence and asked her this question she realized afterward that she would have been obliged to answer: “Oh, no, I don’t. You say you are able, and you say you are willing, and I believe that the words are yours, and that you have all power in heaven and earth, and yet—and yet—I don’t believe that you will do it for me.” To such strange and unaccountable depths of absurdity does unbelief lead us!

At last there came a day when Susan and she could not talk calmly about these things or any other—could not talk at all—could only weep, and wait, and kneel and dumbly pray, and then wait again, while life and death struggled fiercely together for the victim up-stairs, and it seemed that death would be the victor. Many days passed, and the dead-weight of enforced endurance still held Ruth a prisoner, and still she rebelled against the providence that had hemmed her in and shut her away from her father; still she rebelled at the thought of the nurse who bent over him in tireless watch, long before all attempts at securing outside help had been abandoned, Dr. Bacon having expressed himself more than satisfied.

“Never a better nurse took hold of a case,” he said, emphatically, to Ruth. “If your father recovers, and I can not help feeling hopeful, he will owe it more to her care than to any other human effort. She seems to know by instinct what and when and how, and I believe the woman never sleeps at all. She is just as alert and active and determined to-day as she was the first hour she went into his room, and the vigil has been long and sharp. I tell you what, Miss Ruth, you begin to understand, don’t you what this woman was raised up for? She was planned for just such a time as this. No money would have bought such nursing, and it has been a case in which nursing was two-thirds of it. She ought to be a professional nurse this minute. Shall I find a place for her when her services are not needed here in that capacity any longer? She could command grand wages.”

The well-meaning doctor had essayed to bring a smile to Ruth’s wan face; but it was made evident to him that he understood disease better than he did human nature—at least the sort of human nature of which she was composed. She drew herself up proudly, and her tone was unusually and unnecessarily haughty as she said:

“You forget, Dr. Bacon, that you are speaking of Mrs. Erskine.”

Then the doctor shrugged his shoulders, and, with a half-muttered “I beg pardon,” turned away.

“More of an iceberg than ever,” he muttered, a little louder, as he went down the hall. “I don’t know what Burnham is about, I am sure. I hope it is the other one he means.”

And then he slammed the door a little. He had left Ruth in a rage with him and with events and with her own heart. She resented his familiarity with the name which that woman bore, and she resented the fact that she bore the name. She was bitterly jealous of Mrs. Erskine’s position by that sick-bed. She did not believe in her nursing abilities. She knew she was fussy and officious and ignorant, three things that were horrible in a nurse. She knew her father must be a daily sufferer because of this. She by no means saw “what that woman was raised up for,” or why she should have been permitted to come in contact with her. Every day she chafed more under it, and the process made her grow hard and cold and silent to the woman’s daughter. So by degrees the burden grew heavier, and Susan, feeling that no word of hers could help, maintained at last a tender, patient silence, that to Ruth’s sore, angered heart was in itself almost an added sting.

It was in this spirit that they drew near to the hour when the question of life and death would be determined. Ruth’s heart seemed like to burst with the conflict raging in it—sorrow, anxiety, despair—she knew not what to call the burden, but she knew it was a burden. She spent hours in her own room, resenting all interruptions, resenting every call from Susan to come down and take a little nourishment; even almost disposed to resent the bulletins for which she waited breathlessly as they were from time to time spoken through the keyhole in Susan’s low-toned voice. “He is no worse than he was half an hour ago, Ruth;” or, “The doctor thinks there must be a change before night;” or, “Dear Ruth, he murmured your name a little while ago the doctor said.”

Presently Ruth came out of her room and down to the library—came toward Susan sitting in the little rocker with her Bible in her lap, and said, speaking in a low tone so full of pent-up energy that in itself it was startling:

“Susan, if you know how to pray at all, kneel down now and pray for him—I can’t. I have been trying for hours, and have forgotten how to pray.”

Without a word of reply Susan arose quickly and dropped on her knees, Ruth kneeling beside her, and then the words of prayer which filled that room indicated that one heart, at least, knew how to pray, and felt the presence of the Comforter pervading her soul. Long they knelt there, unwilling, it seemed, to rise, even after the audible prayer ceased. And it was thus that Judge Burnham found them, as with light, quick steps he crossed the hall in search of them, saying, as he entered:

“Courage, dear friends, the doctor believes that there is strong reason now for hope.”

The crisis passed, Judge Erskine rallied rapidly, much more rapidly than those who had watched over him in the violence of his sickness had deemed possible. And it came to pass that, after a few more tedious days of waiting, his room was opened once more to the presence of his daughter. Fully as she had supposed that she realized his illness, she was unprepared for the change which it had wrought, and could hardly suppress a cry of dismay as she bent over him. Long afterward she wondered at herself as she recalled the fact that her first startled rebellious thought had been that there was not such a striking contrast now between him and his wife.

There was another disappointment in store for her. She had looked forward to the time when she might reign in that sick-room—might become her father’s sole nurse in his convalescence, and succeed in banishing from his presence that which must have become so unendurable. She discovered that it was a difficult thing to banish a wife from her husband’s sick-room. Mrs. Erskine was, apparently, serenely unconscious that her presence was undesired by Ruth. She came and went freely; was cheery and loquacious, as usual; discoursed on the dangers through which Judge Erskine had passed, and reiterated the fact that it was a mercy she didn’t take the disease, until, actually, Ruth was unable to feel that even this was a mercy! There was a bitterer side to it. Her father had changed in more ways than one. It appeared that his daughter’s unavailing grief for him, in becoming the victim of such a nurse, was all wasted pity. He had not felt it an infliction. His voice had taken a gentle tone, in which there was almost tenderness, when he spoke to her. His eyes followed her movements with an unmistakable air of restfulness. He smiled on his daughter; but he asked his wife to raise his head and arrange his pillow. How was this to be accounted for? How could a few short weeks so change his feelings and tastes?

“She is a born nurse,” Ruth admitted, looking on, and watching the cheery skill with which she made all things comfortable. “Who would have supposed that she could be other than fussy? Well, all persons have their mission. If she could have filled the place of a good, cheerful, hospital nurse, how I should have liked her, and how grateful I should feel to her now!” And then she shuddered over the feeling that she did not now feel toward her an atom of gratitude! She looked forward to a moment when she could be left alone with her father. Of course he was grateful to this woman. His nature was higher than hers. Beside, he knew what she had done, and borne for him, here in this sick-room. Of course he felt it, and was so thoroughly a gentleman that he would show her, by look and action, that he appreciated it; but, could his daughter once have him to herself for a little while, what a relief and comfort it would doubtless be to him. Even over this thought she chafed. If this woman only held the position in the house which would make it proper for her to say, “You may leave us alone now, for awhile. My father and I wish to talk; I will ring when you are needed”—with what gracious and grateful smiles she could have said those words! As it was, she planned.

“Don’t you think it would be well for you to go to another room, and try to get some rest?”

“Yes,” said Judge Erskine, turning his head, and looking earnestly at her; “if any human being ever needed rest, away from this scene of confusion, I think you must.”

“Bless your heart, child” (with a good-natured little laugh)! “I’ve rested ever so much. When you get used to it, you can sleep standing up, with a bowl of gruel in one hand, and a bottle of hot water in the other, ready for action. Just as soon as the anxiety was off, I got rest; and, while I was anxious, you know, I lived on that—does about as well as sleep for keeping up strength; I guess you tried it yourself, by the looks of your white cheeks and great big eyes! Land alive! I never see them look so big; did you, Judge? But Susan says you behaved like a soldier. Well, I knew you would. I says, to myself, says I, ‘She is made of the stuff that will bear it, and do her best;’ and it give me strength to do my best for your pa, ’cause I knew you was depending on me. Says I, ‘I’ve got two sides to this responsibility now; there’s the Judge, lying helpless, and knowing that every single thing that’s done for him, for the next month or so, must come through me; and there’s his daughter down-stairs, trusting to me to bring him through;’ and I did my level best.”

And then Ruth shuddered. It was impossible for her to feel anything but repulsion.

At last Susan—wise-hearted Susan—came to her rescue. She had imperative need for “mother” in the kitchen, for a few minutes. Ruth watched eagerly, as she waddled away, until the door closed after her, then turned with hungry eyes toward her father, ready to pour out her pent-up soul, as she never had done before. His eyes were turned toward the door, and he said, as the retreating footsteps were lost to them:

“If you have joy in your heart, daughter—as I know you have—for the restoration of your father, you owe it, under God, to that woman. I never even imagined anything like the utter self-abnegation that she showed. Disease, in its most repulsive, most loathsome form, held me in its grasp, until I know well I looked less like a human being than I did like some hideous wild animal. Why, I have seen even the doctor start back, overcome, for a moment, by the sight! But she never started back, nor faltered, in her patient, persistent, tender care, through it all. We both owe her our gratitude and our love, my daughter.”

Do you know Ruth well enough to understand that she poured out no pent-up tide of tenderness upon her father, after that? She retired into her old silent self, to such a degree that the father looked at her wonderingly, at first, then half wearily, and turned his head and closed his eyes, that he might rest, since she had nothing to say to him.

It was two or three days afterward that she tried again. In the meantime, she had chided herself sharply for her folly. Why had she allowed herself to be so cold—so apparently heartless—when her heart was so full of love? Was she really so demoralized, she asked herself, that she would have her father other than grateful for the care which had been bestowed? Of course he was grateful, and of course he desired to show it, as any noble nature should. After all, what had he said but that they both owed her a debt of gratitude and love?

“So we do,” said Ruth, sturdily. “I should love a dog who had been kind to him.” And then she suppressed an almost groan over the startling thought that, if this woman had been only a dog, she could have loved!

But she was left alone with her father again. He had advanced to the sitting-up stage, and she was to sit with him and amuse him, while Mrs. Erskine attended to some outside matter, Ruth neither knew nor cared what, so that she went away. She was tender and thoughtful, shading her father’s weakened eyes from the light, picking up his dropped handkerchief, doing a dozen little nothings for him, and occasionally speaking some tender word. He was not disposed to talk much beyond asking a few general questions as to what had transpired during his absence from the world. Then, presently, he broke an interval of silence, during which he had sat with closed eyes, by asking:

“Where is Susan?”

“Susan!” his daughter repeated, half startled. “Why, she is in the kitchen, I presume; she generally is, at this hour of the morning. She has had to be housekeeper and cook and I hardly know what not, during these queer days. She has filled all the posts splendidly! I don’t know what you would have eaten but for her.”

Here Ruth paused a moment, to be gratified over her own advance in goodness. At least she could speak freely, and in praise of Susan. Then she said:

“Do you want anything, father, that Susan can get for you?”

He unclosed his eyes, and looked at her with a full, meaning smile, as he said, slowly:

“I was not thinking of that Susan, my dear; I meant my wife. You may call her, if you will; I feel somewhat tired, and she knows just how to fix me for rest.”

Imagine Ruth Erskine going down the hall, down the stairs, through the library, out through the back hall, away to the linen-closet, and saying, to Mrs. Judge Erskine, in a low tone:

“Father wants you, ma’am!”

“Bless his heart!” said Mrs. Erskine, dropping the pile of fresh linen she was fumbling in. “I hope he hasn’t been fretty ’cause I staid so long!”

Then she fled up the stairs.

Well, you are not very well versed in the knowledge of the depths of the human heart, if you need to be told that this last experience was the bitterest drop in Ruth’s cup of trouble. Hitherto it had been her father and herself, bearing together a common trial. Now she felt that, someway, she had lost her father, and gained nothing—rather, lost—that she had sunken in her own estimation, and that she was alone!