At supper time Phil Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality already mentioned had asked him to deliver.  Doctor Holiday was tempted to read it but refrained.  Surely the boy would be home soon.

The evening meal was rather a silent one.  Ruth was wearing a charming dark blue velvet gown which Larry especially liked.  The doctor guessed that she had dressed particularly for her lover and was sadly disappointed when he failed to put in his appearance.  She drooped perceptibly and her blue eyes were wistful.

An hour later when the three, Margery, her husband, and Ruth, were sitting quietly engaged in reading in the living room they heard the sound of the returning car.  All three were distinctly conscious of an involuntary breath of relief which permeated the room.  Nobody had said a word but every one of them had been filled with foreboding.

Presently Larry entered with the yellow envelope in his hand.  He was pale and very tired looking but obviously entirely in command of himself whatever had been the case earlier in the day.  He crossed the room to where his uncle sat and handed him the telegram.

“Please read it aloud,” he said.  “It—­it concerns all of us.”

The older doctor complied with the request.

Arrive Dunbury January 18 nine forty A.M.  So ran the brief though pregnant message.  It was signed Captain Geoffrey Annersley.

The color went out of Ruth’s face as she heard the name.  She put her hands over her eyes and uttered a little moan.  Then abruptly she dropped her hands, the color came surging back into her cheeks and she ran to Larry, fairly throwing herself into his arms.

“I don’t want to see him.  Don’t let him come.  I hate him.  I don’t want to be Elinor Farringdon.  I want to be just Ruth—­Ruth Holiday,” she whispered the last in Larry’s ear, her head on his shoulder.

Larry kissed her for the first time before the others, then meeting his uncle’s grave eyes he put her gently from him and walked over to the door.  On the threshold he turned and faced them all.

“Uncle Phil—­Aunt Margery, help Ruth.  I can’t.”  And the door closed upon him.

Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it was not an easy task.  Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love for Larry Holiday.

“I don’t want anybody but Larry,” she wailed over and over.  “It is Larry I love.  I don’t love Geoffrey Annersley.  I won’t let him be my husband.  I don’t want anybody but Larry.”

In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow before she gave up.  Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn’t her husband.  Perhaps everything was quite all right.  She must try to have patience and not let herself get sick worrying in advance.