The household was gathered in the great room waiting and watching. The old ladies by the hearth scarcely noticed one another. The judge sitting apart half started up at the faint rustle of Ruth's approach, but finding that it was no messenger bringing news, he sat down again with a weary sigh, and his gaze went back to the other side of the river. His appearance told how great his anxiety was. His rugged, homely face was haggard and unshorn, and his rough dress was even more careless than common. William Pressley arose and came forward to give Ruth a chair. There was no visible change in him, his dress was as immaculate as it always was. His manner was just as coldly implacable as it had been ever since the quarrel; but then his temper never had anything to do with his looks or his manners. No degree of uneasiness could ever make him forget appearances or the smallest form of courtesy; and he would have thought it a pitiable sort of man who could be moved by emotion to any kind of irregularity. His way of placing the chair proclaimed that he never failed to do all that became a gentleman, no matter how neglectful emotional people might sometimes become. Philip Alston, coming in just at that moment, saw something of this with mingled amusement and satisfaction. The candor of William Pressley's self-consciousness, the sincerity of his self-conceit, the firmness of his belief in his own infallibility, claimed a measure of real respect, and Philip Alston gave it in full. He thought none the less of him because he could not help smiling a little at the solemn progress which the young lawyer was then making across the great room. To be able to smile at anything on that day of strain was a boon. And then it was always pleasing and cheering to see any fresh sign that he had read the young lawyer's character aright, and he was glad to see again what a good-looking, well-mannered, right-minded young fellow he was. Nothing could be said against him. Everything--or almost everything--was to be said in his praise. The open fact that he thought all this himself would be nothing against him with Ruth. A man's faith in himself is indeed often the chief cause of a woman's faith in him. No one knew this better than Philip Alston. As he looked at William that day, a new feeling of peace came into his perturbed breast. He was beginning to be disheartened by unexpected opposition to his plan to have the young lawyer appointed to the office of attorney-general. Had he been closer in touch with the governor, he would have known that all his efforts were useless, for the office was held by appointment in those days, and not by election as it is now. But it was a long way to the state capital on horseback, and he had seen no newspapers, so that he knew nothing positively, and was only beginning to fear. And thinking about the uncertainty, he was encouraged to feel that even failure in this would not alter his belief that the marriage was the best Ruth could make.