CHAPTER XIV

RUTH’S FIRST SUNDAY AT ECCLESTON

Ruth felt very shy when she came down (at half-past seven) the next morning, in her widow’s cap.  Her smooth, pale face, with its oval untouched by time, looked more young and childlike than ever, when contrasted with the head-gear usually associated with ideas of age.  She blushed very deeply as Mr. and Miss Benson showed the astonishment, which they could not conceal, in their looks.  She said in a low voice to Miss Benson—­

“Sally thought I had better wear it.”

Miss Benson made no reply; but was startled at the intelligence, which she thought was conveyed in this speech, of Sally’s acquaintance with Ruth’s real situation.  She noticed Sally’s looks particularly this morning.  The manner in which the old servant treated Ruth had in it far more of respect than there had been the day before; but there was a kind of satisfied way of braving out Miss Benson’s glances which made the latter uncertain and uncomfortable.  She followed her brother into his study.

“Do you know, Thurstan, I am almost certain Sally suspects.”

Mr. Benson sighed.  That deception grieved him, and yet he thought he saw its necessity.

“What makes you think so?” asked he.

“Oh! many little things.  It was her odd way of ducking her head about, as if to catch a good view of Ruth’s left hand, that made me think of the wedding-ring; and once, yesterday, when I thought I had made up quite a natural speech, and was saying how sad it was for so young a creature to be left a widow she broke in with ‘widow be farred!’ in a very strange, contemptuous kind of manner.”

“If she suspects, we had far better tell her the truth at once.  She will never rest till she finds it out, so we must make a virtue of necessity.”

“Well, brother, you shall tell her then, for I am sure I daren’t.  I don’t mind doing the thing, since you talked to me that day, and since I have got to know Ruth; but I do mind all the clatter people will make about it.”

“But Sally is not ‘people.’”

“Oh, I see it must be done; she’ll talk as much as all the other persons put together, so that’s the reason I call her ‘people.’  Shall I call her?” (For the house was too homely and primitive to have bells.)

Sally came, fully aware of what was now going to be told her, and determined not to help them out in telling their awkward secret, by understanding the nature of it before it was put into the plainest language.  In every pause, when they hoped she had caught the meaning they were hinting at, she persisted in looking stupid and perplexed, and in saying, “Well,” as if quite unenlightened as to the end of the story.  When it was all complete and before her, she said, honestly enough—­