Reuben’s love was one of compassion rather than true affection.  He had almost ceased his attentions in her mother’s lifetime, and had been very reserved in his intercourse of late.  Doubtless if he heard of her father’s ruin, generosity would make him strive to do all that he could for her in her changed circumstances.  It would be like him then to step forward and avow himself ready to marry her.  But it was out of the question for her to consent.  She wished the matter settled and done with; she wished the irrevocable words spoken.

And yet when at dusk one evening Reuben suddenly stood before her, she felt her heart beating to suffocation, and wished that she had any reasonable excuse for fleeing from him.

His visits to the house were not frequent; he was too busy to make them so.  But from time to time he brought orphaned children to the home of shelter, or took away from it some of those for whom other homes had been found with their kinsfolk in other places.  Tonight he had brought in three little destitute orphans; but having given them over into the care of his sisters, he went in search of Gertrude, who was with the youngest of the children in a separate room, and, having sung them all to sleep, was sitting in the window thinking her own thoughts.

She knew what was coming when she saw Reuben’s face, and braced herself to meet it.  Reuben was very quiet and self-restrained—­so self-restrained that she thought she read in his manner an indication that her suspicion was correct, and that it was pity rather than love which prompted his proposal of marriage.

As a matter of fact Reuben was more in love with Gertrude now than he had ever been in his life before; but he had come to look upon her as a being so far above him in every respect that he sometimes marvelled at himself for ever hoping to win her.  The fact that her father was just now a ruined man seemed to him as nothing.  At a time like this the presence or absence of this world’s goods appeared absolutely trivial.  Reuben believed that the Master Builder would retrieve his fortune in better times without difficulty, and regarded this temporary reverse as absolutely insignificant.  Therefore he had no clue to Gertrude’s motive in her rejection of him, and accepted it almost in silence, feeling that it was what he always ought to have looked for, and marvelling at his temerity in seeking the hand of one who was to him more angel than woman.

He said very little; he took it very quietly.  It seemed to him as though all the life went out of him, and as though hope died within him for ever.  But he scarcely showed any outward emotion as he rose and said farewell; and little did he guess how, when he had gone, Gertrude flung herself on the floor in a passion of tears and sobbed till the fountain of her weeping was exhausted.

“I was right!  I was right!  It was not love; it was only pity!  But ah, how terrible it is to put aside all the happiness of one’s life!  Oh I wonder if I have done wrong!  I wonder if I could better have borne it if I had humbled myself to take what he had to offer, without thinking of anything but myself!”