Self. "I didn't know father had received a letter from Godfrey," said
Ruth, shading her face from the lamp, and lifting to Leonard a smile
which implied that it would have been but fair for him to have told her.
"It came the day before Arthur went away," replied Leonard, and Ruth
reluctantly chose a new topic. They rarely had an evening together thus,
and with a soft rain falling at the open windows they sat and talked on
many themes in what was to them a very talkative way. When something
brought up the subject of the late noted trial, Ruth asked her brother
how it had first come to him to suspect so unsuspected a man. His reply
was tardy. "Partly," he said, and mused while he spoke, "because I am so
unsuspected a man myself." He looked up with a smile, half play, half
pain. "I know what the mind of an unsuspected man is capable of--under
pressure." The questioner looked on him with fond faith, and then,
dropping her eyes to her needlework, said, "That wasn't all that
prompted you, was it?" "No," replied the brother, again musing. "I had
noticed the singular value of wanton guesswork." "I thought so," said
the sister. Her needle flagged and stopped, and each knew the other's
mind was on the implacable divinations of one morbid soul. Leonard
leaned and fingered the needlework,--a worsted slipper, too small for
most men, too large for most women. "Is that for him?" "Yes," apologized
Ruth; "it's the thing every clergyman has to incur. But I'm only doing
it to help Isabel out; she has the other." The evening went quickly.
When Leonard let down the window sashes and lowered the shades, Ruth,
standing
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