The Man Between

"I suppose they have told you all the arrangements. They are very simple. Did they say anything about Ruth?"

"They never named her. They said they were going to Washington for a week, and then to Rawdon Court. Ruth seems out of it all. Are you going to turn her adrift, or present her with a few thousand dollars? She has been a mother to Ethel. Something ought to be done for Ruth Bayard."

"I intend to marry her."

"I thought so."

"She will go to her sister's in Philadelphia for a month 's preparation. I shall marry her there, and bring her home as my wife. She is a sweet, gentle, docile woman. She will make me happy."

"Sweet, gentle, docile! Yes, that is the style of wife Rawdon men prefer. What does Ethel say?"

"She is delighted. It was her idea. I was much pleased with her thoughtfulness. Any serious break in my life would now be a great discomfort. You need not look so satirical, mother; I thought of Ruth's life also."

"Also an afterthought; but Ruth is gentle and docile, and she is satisfied, and I am satisfied, so then everything is proper and everyone content. Come for me at ten on Wednesday morning. I shall be ready. No refreshments, I suppose. I must look after my own breakfast. Won't you feel a bit shabby, Edward?" And then the look and handclasp between them turned every word into sweetness and good-will.

And as Ethel regarded her marriage rather as a religious rite than a social function, she objected to its details becoming in any sense public, and her desires were to be regarded. Yet everyone may imagine the white loveliness of the bride, the joy of the bridegroom, the calm happiness of the family breakfast, and the leisurely, quiet leave-taking. The whole ceremony was the right note struck at the beginning of a new life, and they might justly expect it would move onward in melodious sequence.

Within three weeks after their marriage they arrived at Rawdon Court. It was on a day and at an hour when no one was looking for them, and they stepped into the lovely home waiting for them without outside observation. Hiring a carriage at the railway station, they dismissed it at the little bridge near the Manor House, and sauntered happily through the intervening space. The door of the great hall stood open, and the fire, which had been burning on its big hearth unquenched for more than three hundred years, was blazing merrily, as if some hand had just replenished it. On the long table the broad, white beaver hat of the dead Squire was lying, and his oak walking stick was beside it. No one had liked to remove them. They remained just as he had put them down, that last, peaceful morning of his life.