IT took some time for the Erskines to find their way back into the world—rather it took the world many weeks to be willing to receive them. What was reasonable caution at first became not only annoying but ludicrous, as the weeks went by, and common-sense suggested that all possibility of danger from contact with them was past; there were those who could not believe that it would ever be safe to call on them again. Ruth, on her part did not worry over this, but suggested, coldly, that it would be an almost infinite relief if two-thirds of their calling acquaintances would continue frightened for the rest of their lives.

In the domestic world it made more trouble. Servants—an army of them—who were marshaled to and from intelligence offices, looked askance at the doors and windows, as if they half expected the demon of small-pox to take visible shape and pounce upon them, and it was found to be only the worst and most hopeless characters who had ventured into doubtful quarters, so that for days Susan was engaged in well-managed skirmishes between girls who professed everything and knew nothing.

Ruth had long before retired, vanquished from this portion of the field, and agreed that her forte did not lie in that direction. “I haven’t the least idea where it lies,” she said aloud, and gloomily. But she was in her own room, and the door was locked, and there was no other listener than the window-light, against which her brown head wearily leaned. She had not yet reached the point where she was willing to confess her disappointment at life to anybody else, but in truth it seemed that the world was too small for her. She was not needed at home, nor elsewhere, so far as she could see. Her father, as he relapsed into old duties, did not seek his former confidential footing with her; indeed, he seemed rather to avoid it, as one who might fear lest his own peace would be shaken. So Ruth thought at first, but one little private talk with him had dispelled the probability of that.

“I want to tell you something, daughter,” he had said to her when they were left alone in the library, the first day of his return to office-life. “At least I owe it to you to tell you something. I waited until I had really gotten back into the work-a-day world again, because of a half recognized fear which I see now was cowardly and faithless, that old scenes would recall old feelings. I had an experience, my daughter, during those first few days when the Lord shut me out from you all. My Christian faith did not sustain me as it ought to have done. I mean by that, that it was not the sort of faith which it ought to have been. I rebelled at the fierceness of the fire in which I had been placed. I felt that I could not bear it; that it was cruel and bitter. Most of all, I rebelled at the presence of my wife. I felt that it was too much to be shut away from everything that life holds dear, and to be shut up with that which had hitherto made life miserable. I can not tell you of the struggle, of the hopeless beatings of my bruised head against the bars of its cage. It almost unmans me even to think of those hours.” And Judge Erskine paused and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “I will just hurry over the details,” he said at last. “There came an hour when I began to dimly comprehend that my Redeemer was only answering some of the agonizing prayers that I had of late been constantly putting up to him. I had prayed, Ruth, for strength to do my whole duty, and in order to do it I plainly saw that I must feel differently from what I had been feeling; that I must get over this shrinking from a relation which I deliberately brought upon myself, and one which I was bound, by solemn covenant, to sustain. I must have help; I must submit, not only, but I must learn to be pitiful toward, and patient with, and yet how could I? Christ showed me how. He let me see such a revelation of my own selfishness, and hardness, and pride, as made me abhor myself in ‘dust and ashes,’ and then he let me see such a revelation of human patience, and tenderness, and self-abnegation, as filled me with gratitude and respect. Ruth, he has given me much more than I asked. I prayed for patience and tenderness and he gave me not only those, but such a feeling of respect for one who could so entirely forget herself, and do for another what my wife did for me, that I feel able to cherish her all the rest of my life. In short, daughter, I feel that I could take even the vows of the marriage-covenant upon my lips now, and mean them in all simplicity and singleness of heart. And having taken them long ago I ratify them now, and mean to live by them as long as life lasts to us both, so help me God. In all this I do not forget the sin, nor the suffering which that sin has entailed upon you, my dear, precious daughter, but I feel that I must do what I can to atone for it, and that shirking my duty, as I have been doing in the past, does not help you to bear your part. I know you have forgiven me, Ruth, and I know that God has. He has done more than that. In his infinite love and compassion he has made the cross a comfort. And now, daughter, I never wish to speak of this matter again. You asked me, once, if I wished you to call her mother. I have no desire to force your lips to what they do not mean, nor to oblige you to bear any more cross for your father, than the sin has, in itself, laid upon you, but if, at any time in your future life, you feel that you care to say, ‘Mother,’ it will be a pleasant sound to my ears.”

Ruth reflected, afterward, with a sense of thankfulness, that she had grace enough left to bend forward and kiss her father’s white forehead, and pass her hand tenderly over the moist locks of gray hair above his temples. Then she went out and went away. She could have spoken no word just then. She was struggling with two conflicting feelings. In her soul she was glad for her father; that he had got help, and that his heavy cross was growing into peace. But all the same—she felt now, and felt with a dull aching at her heart which refused to be comforted, that she herself had not found peace in it; that it was, if anything, more bitter than ever, and that she had lost her father. Is it any wonder that life to her stretched out gloomily?

Many changes had taken place during their enforced exile from the world. Eurie Mitchell had married and gone, and Flossy Shipley had married and gone, both of them to new homes and new friends, and both of them had, by their departure, made great gulfs in Ruth’s life. They had written her characteristic notes along with their wedding cards. Eurie’s ran thus:

Ruth laughed over this note. “It is so exactly like her,” she murmured. “I wonder if she will ever tone down?”

Flossy’s was smaller, daintier, delicately perfumed with the faintest touch of violets, and read:

Over this note Ruth shed hot tears. She was touched and comforted and saddened; she realized more than ever before what a spiritual loss Flossy’s going was to be to her, and she did not come closer to the One who would have made amends for all losses.

Perhaps she had never felt the dreariness of her existence more than she did on a certain evening, some weeks after the household had settled into its accustomed routine of life, which was like and yet utterly unlike what that life had been before the invasion of disease.

It was dark outside, and the rain was falling heavily; there was little chance of relief from monotony by the arrival of guests. Ruth wandered aimlessly through the library in search of a book that she felt willing to read, and, finding none, turned at last to the sitting-room, where Judge Erskine and his wife were sitting. Secure in the prospect of rain, and therefore seclusion, he had arrayed himself in dressing-gown and slippers, and was resting his scarred, seamed face among the cushions of the easy-chair, enjoying a luxury, which was none other than that of having his gray hair carefully and steadily brushed, the brush passing with the regularity of a sentinel on its slow, soothing track, guided by his wife’s hand, while Judge Erskine’s face bore unmistakable signs of reposeful rest. There was that in the scene which irritated Ruth almost beyond control. She passed quickly through the room, into the most remote corner of the alcove, which was curtained off from the main room, and afforded a retreat for the piano, and a pretext for any one who desired to use it and be alone. It was not that she had ever waited thus upon her father; she had never thought of approaching him in this familiar way. Even had she dared to do so, their make-up was, after all, so utterly dissimilar that, what was evidently a sedative to him, would have driven his daughter fairly wild. To have any one, however dear and familiar, touch her hair, draw a brush through it, would have irritated her nerves in her best days. She thought of it then, as she sat down in the first seat that she reached, after the friendly crimson curtains hid her from those two—sat with her chin resting in her two listless hands, and tried to wonder what she should do if she were forced to lie among the cushions of that easy-chair in there, and have that woman brush her hair.

“I should choke her, I know I should!” she said, with sudden fierceness; and then, with scarcely less fierceness of tone and manner added: “I hope it will never be my awful fate to have to be taken care of by her, or to have to endure the sight of her presence about any one I love. Oh, what is the matter with me! I grow wicked every hour. What will become of me?”

After all, there were those who were not afraid of the rain, and were not to be kept from their purposes by it. Ruth listened indifferently at first, then with a touch of eagerness, to the sound of the bell, and the tones in the hall, and then to the sound of Judge Burnham’s step as he was being shown to the sitting-room. The new help had been in the house just long enough to discover that he was a privileged and unceremonious guest.

“Ah!” he said, pausing in the doorway “Am I disturbing? Sick to-night, Judge?”

“Come in,” said Judge Erskine’s hearty voice. “No, I am not sick, only dreadfully lazy and being petted. When I was a boy, and mother used to brush my hair, nothing soothed and rested me so much, and I find I haven’t lost the old habit. Have a chair, and tell us the evening news. I haven’t been out of the house since dinner.”

“Nothing specially new,” said Judge Burnham, dropping into an easy-chair and looking around him inquiringly. “Where are the ladies?”

“Why,” said Mrs. Erskine, brushing away steadily, “Susan is in the kitchen; she mostly is these days. Such a time as we are having with servants; I wonder she don’t get sick of the whole set and tell them to tramp. Just now, though, she has got hold of one who seems willing enough to learn; and Susan heard her pa say this noon that he believed he would like some muffins once more, so she is down there trying to teach Mollie about setting muffins, and beating of it into her to let them alone in the morning till she gets down to ’tend to them.”

“Why,” said Judge Erskine, in a tone of tenderness that jarred Ruth’s ears, “I wonder if she is attending to that? What a child she is! She will wear herself out waiting on me.”

“There ain’t a selfish streak about her,” Mrs. Erskine said, complacently “nor never was. But la! you needn’t fret about her, Judge; she loves to do it. She went down in the first place to ’tend to that, but she has got another string to her bow now; she found out that Mollie didn’t know how to read writing, and had a letter from her mother that she couldn’t make out, so Susan read it to her, and the next thing was to write her an answer, and she is at that now.”

“And where is Miss Ruth?” questioned Judge Burnham, the instant this long sentence was concluded.

“Why, she is moping—that’s the best name I know for it. She is back there in the alcove. I thought she went to play, but she hasn’t played a note. That child needs a change. I’m just that worried about her that her white face haunts me nights when I’m trying to sleep. She has had an awful hard siege; her pa so sick, and she obliged to keep away from him, and not being sure whether I knew more than a turnip about taking care of him—I wonder how she stood it. And I’m just afraid she will break down yet. She needs something to rest her up and give her some color in her cheeks. I keep telling her pa that he ought to do something.”

“Suppose I go and help her mope,” Judge Burnham said, rising in the midst of a flow of words, and speedily making his way behind the red curtains.

He came over to Ruth, holding out both hands to greet her.

“How do you do?” he said, and there was tender inquiry in the tone. “You didn’t know I was in town, did you? I came two days sooner than I had hoped.”

“I didn’t know you were out of town,” said Ruth. “I thought you had deserted us like the rest of our friends.”

“So you didn’t get my note?” he asked, looking blank. “Well, never mind; it was merely an explanation of an absence which I hoped you might notice. Mrs. Erskine says you are moping, Ruth. Is it true? She says you need a change and something to rest you up. I wish you would let me give you a change. Don’t you think you could?”

“A change!” Ruth repeated, with a little laugh, and there was color enough in her cheeks just then.

“Why should I need a change? What do you mean?”

“I mean a great deal. I want to give you such a change as will affect all your future life and mine. I would like to have you change name and home. Oh, Ruth, I would like to devote my life to the business of ‘resting you up.’ Don’t you believe I can do it?”

Now, I am sure there is no need for me to give you Ruth Erskine’s answer. You probably understand what it was. Unless I am mistaken, you understand her better than she did herself. Up to this very moment she actually had not realized what made up the bulk of her unrest this week. No, not the bulk either; there were graver questions even than this one which might well disturb her, but she had not understood her own footing with Judge Burnham, nor had scarcely a conception of his feelings toward her.

The low murmur of talk went on, after a little, behind the red curtains, and continued long after Judge Erskine and his wife went up-stairs. Just as he was turning out the gas in their dressing-room, that gentleman said:

“Unless I am mistaken, Judge Burnham would like to give Ruth a decided change.”

“Land alive!” said Mrs. Erskine, taking in his meaning, after a little, “I declare, now you speak of it, I shouldn’t wonder if he did.” Then she added, kindly, genuinely: “And I’m sure I hope it’s true; I tell you that child needs resting up.”