“I don’t know that there is very much more to tell. I came down at my usual hour the next morning, and found no signs of commotion about the farm. As a matter of fact, I caught sight of nobody but a stray labourer or so as I went my rounds. I moved in a dull coma, such as overtakes us after a crisis of great excitement; a dull reaction, such as follows on some deep stirring of our emotions. Then as I went in to breakfast, I saw Mrs. Pennistan moving in the kitchen in her habitual placid fashion, and Amos came in, rubbing his hands on a coarse towel, strong and hearty in the crisp morning. The old grandmother was already in her place by the fire, her quavering hands busy with her toast and her cup of coffee. Everything wore the look I had seen on it a hundred times before, and I wondered whether my experience had not all been a dream of my sleep, and whether Ruth would not presently arrive with that flush I had learnt to look for on her cheeks. “‘Where’s Ruth?’ said Mrs. Pennistan as we sat down. “‘She’ll be in presently, likely,’ said Amos, who was an easy-going man. “Her mother grumbled. “‘She shouldn’t be late for breakfast.’ “‘Come, come, mother,’ said Amos, ‘don’t be hard on the girl on her wedding-eve,’ and as he winked at me I hid my face in my vast cup. “Then Leslie Dymock burst in, with a letter in his hand, and at the sight of his face, and of that suddenly ominous little piece of white paper, the Pennistans started up and tragedy rushed like a hurricane into the pleasant room. “He said,— “‘She’s gone, read her letter,’ and thrust it into her father’s hand. “I wish I could reproduce for you the effect of that letter which Amos read aloud; it was quite short, and said, ‘Leslie. I am going away because I can’t do you the injustice of becoming your wife. Tell father and mother that I am doing this because I think it is right. I am not trying to write more because it is all so difficult, and there is a great deal more than they will ever know, and I don’t think I understand everything myself. Try to forgive me. I am, your miserable Ruth.’ “I cannot tell you,” said Malory, who, as I could see, was profoundly shaken by the vividness of his recollection, “how moved I was by the confusion and distress of those strangely disquieting words. I could not reconcile them at all with the picture I had formed of two kindred natures rushing at last together in a pre-ordained and elemental union. I rose to get away from the family hubbub, for I wanted to be by myself, but on the way I stopped and looked at the mice in their cage among the red geraniums. They were waltzing frantically, as though impelled by a sinister influence from which there was no escape.” PART II I