They brought her tea, which was comfortable, according to the
idea of comfort prevalent in that rude hospitable place; there
was plenty to eat; too much indeed, for it revolted the appetite
it was intended to provoke. But the heartiness with which the
kind rosy waiter pressed her to eat, and the scolding Mrs. Morgan
gave her when she found the buttered toast untouched (toast on
which she had herself desired that the butter might not be
spared), did Ruth more good than the tea. She began to hope, and
to long for the morning when hope might have become certainty. It
was all in vain that she was told that the room she had been in
all day was at her service; she did not say a word, but she was
not going to bed that night of all nights in the year, when life
or death hung trembling in the balance. She went into the bedroom
till the bustling house was still, and heard busy feet passing to
and fro into the room she might not enter; and voices, imperious,
though hushed down to a whisper, ask for innumerable things. Then
there was silence: and when she thought that all were dead
asleep, except the watchers, she stole out into the gallery. On
the other side were two windows, cut into the thick stone wall,
and flower-pots were placed on the shelves thus formed, where
great untrimmed, straggling geraniums grew, and strove to reach
the light. The window near Mr. Bellingham's door was open; the
soft, warm-scented night-air came sighing in in faint gusts, and
then was still. It was summer; there was no black darkness in the
twenty-four hours; only the light grew dusky, and colour
disappeared from objects, of which the shape and form remained
distinct. A soft grey oblong of barred light fell on the flat
wall opposite to the windows, and deeper grey shadows marked out
the tracery of the plants, more graceful thus than in reality.
Ruth crouched where no light fell. She sat on the ground close by