"Sleep!" repeated Ruth. "I only thought of one thing, and that was to get here in time to see him." She left the sofa. "You ought to have waited for me. It would have been better if you had. _Jared_ was the one I cared for. One look at his face, even if he _was_ dead. Where did they put him when they brought him home? For I know mother had him here, here and not at the Cottage. It was in this room, wasn't it? In the centre of the floor?" She walked to the middle of the room and stood there. "_Jared_ could have helped me," she said, miserably. "Why did they take my _brother_--the one person I had!" The door opened and the doctor entered. "_You_ here, Mrs. Chase? I didn't know you had come." He hesitated. "What is it?" said Ruth, going to him. "Tell me! _Tell_ me." The doctor glanced at Chase. Chase came up, and took his wife's hand protectingly. "You may as well tell her." "It is a stroke of paralysis," explained the doctor, gravely. "But she'll _know_ me?" cried Ruth in an agony of tears. "She _may_. You can go up if you like." But the mother saw nothing, heard nothing on earth again. She might live for years. But she did not know her own child. Chase came at last, and took his wife away. "Oh, be good to me, Horace, or I shall die! I think I _am_ dying now," she added in sudden terror. She clung to him in alarm. His immense kindness was now her refuge. CHAPTER XVIII In spite of all there was to see that afternoon, Dolly Franklin had chosen to remain at home; she sat alone in the drawing-room, adding silken rows to her stocking of the moment. Wherever Ruth was, that was now Dolly's home; since Mrs. Franklin's death, two years before, Dolly had lived with her sister. The mother had survived her son but a month. Her soul seemed to have departed with the first stroke of the benumbing malady; there was nothing but the breathing left. At the end of a few weeks, even the breathing ceased. Since then, L'Hommedieu had been closed, save for a short time each spring. Horace Chase had bought a cottage at Newport, and his wife and Dolly had divided their time between Newport and New York. This winter, however, Chase had reopened his Florida house, the old Worth place, at St. Augustine; for Ruth's health appeared to be growing delicate; at least she had a dread of the cold, of the icy winds, and the snow. "Well, we'll go back to the land of the alligators," said Chase; "we'll live on sweet potatoes and the little oysters that grow round loose. You seem to have forgotten that you own a shanty down there, Ruthie?" At first Ruth opposed this idea. Then suddenly she changed her mind. "No, I'll go. I want to sail, and sail!" "So do I," said Dolly. "But why shouldn't we try new waters? The Bay of Naples, for instance? Mr. Chase, if you cannot go over at present, you could come for us, you know, whenever it was convenient?" Dolly expended upon her idea all the eloquence she possessed.