PREPARING TO STAND ON THE TRUTH
As Ruth went along the accustomed streets, every sight and every sound seemed to hear a new meaning, and each and all to have some reference to her boy's disgrace. She held her head down, and scudded along dizzy with fear, lest some word should have told him what she had been, and what he was, before she could reach him. It was a wild, unreasoning fear, but it took hold of her as strongly as if it had been well founded. And, indeed, the secret whispered by Mrs. Pearson, whose curiosity and suspicion had been excited by Jemima's manner, and confirmed since by many a little corroborating circumstance, had spread abroad, and was known to most of the gossips in Eccleston before it reached Mr. Bradshaw's ears. As Ruth came up to the door of the Chapel-house, it was opened, and Leonard came out, bright and hopeful as the morning, his face radiant at the prospect of the happy day before him. He was dressed in the clothes it had been such a pleasant pride to her to make for him. He had the dark-blue ribbon tied round his neck that she had left out for him that very morning, with a smiling thought of how it would set off his brown, handsome face. She caught him by the hand as they met, and turned him, with his face homewards, without a word. Her looks, her rushing movement, her silence, awed him;and although he wondered, he did not stay to ask why she did so. The door was on the latch; she opened it, and only said, "Upstairs," in a hoarse whisper. Up they went into her own room. She drew him in, and bolted the door; and then, sitting down, she placed him (she had never let go of him)before her, holding him with her hands on each of his shoulders, and gazing into his face with a woeful lock of the agony that could not find vent in words. At last she tried to speak: she tried with strong bodily effort, almost amounting to convulsion. But the words would not come; it was not till she saw the absolute terror depicted on his face that she found utterance;and then the sight of that terror changed the words from what she meant them to have been. She drew him to her, and laid her head upon his shoulder;hiding her face even there. "My poor, poor boy! my poor, poor darling! Oh! would that I had died--Ihad died, in my innocent girlhood!" "Mother! mother!" sobbed Leonard. "What is the matter? Why do you look so wild and ill? Why do you call me your 'poor boy'? Are we not going to Scaurside Hill? I don't much mind it, mother; only please don't gasp and quiver so. Dearest mother, are you ill? Let me call Aunt Faith!" Ruth lifted herself up, and put away the hair that had fallen over and was blinding her eyes. She looked at him with intense wistfulness. "Kiss me, Leonard!" said she--"kiss me, my darling, once more in the old way!" Leonard threw himself into her arms and hugged her with all his force, and their lips clung together as in the kiss given to the dying. "Leonard!" said she at length, holding him away from her, and nerving herself up to tell him all by one spasmodic effort--"listen to me." The boy stood breathless and still, gazing at her. On her impetuous transit from Mr.