The train was moving rapidly now in the midst of a deep throaty cheer that sounded more like a sob, and still he stood on that bottom step with his hat lifted and let his eyes linger on the slender girlish figure in the car, with the morning sun glinting across her red-gold hair, and the beautiful soft rose color in her cheeks.
As the train swept past the little shelter shed he bethought himself and turned a farewell tender smile on the white-haired woman who stood watching him through a mist of tears. Then his eyes went back for one last glimpse of the girl; and so he flashed out of sight around the curve.
III
It had taken only a short time after all. The crowd drowned its cheer in one deep gasp of silence and broke up tearfully into little groups beginning to melt away at the sound of Michael ringing up the gates, and telling the cars and wagons to hurry that it was almost time for the up-train.
Ruth Macdonald started her car and tried to bring her senses back to their normal calm wondering what had happened to her and why there was such an inexpressible mingling of loss and pleasure in her heart.
The way at first was intricate with congestion of traffic and Ruth was obliged to go slowly. As the road cleared before her she was about to glide forward and make up for lost time. Suddenly a bewildered little woman with white hair darted in front of the car, hesitated, drew back, came on again. Ruth stopped the car shortly, much shaken with the swift vision of catastrophe, and the sudden recognition of the woman. It was the same one who had been with John Cameron.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I startled you!” she called pleasantly, leaning out of the car. “Won’t you get in, please, and let me take you home?”
The woman looked up and there were great tears in her eyes. It was plain why she had not seen where she was going.
“Thank you, no, I couldn’t!” she said with a choke in her voice and another blur of tears, “I—you see—I want to get away—I’ve been seeing off my boy!”
“I know!” said Ruth with quick sympathy, “I saw. And you want to get home quickly and cry. I feel that way myself. But you see I didn’t have anybody there and I’d like to do a little something just to be in it. Won’t you please get in? You’ll get home sooner if I take you; and see! We’re blocking the way!”
The woman cast a frightened glance about and assented:
“Of course. I didn’t realize!” she said climbing awkwardly in and sitting bolt upright as uncomfortable as could be in the luxurious car beside the girl. It was all too plain she did not wish to be there.
Ruth manœuvred her car quickly out of the crowd and into a side street, gliding from there to the avenue. She did not speak until they had left the melting crowd well behind them. Then she turned timidly to the woman:
“You—are—his—mother?”
She spoke the words hesitatingly as if she feared to touch a wound. The woman’s eyes suddenly filled again and a curious little quiver came on the strong chin.
“Yes,” she tried to say and smothered the word in her handkerchief pressed quickly to her lips in an effort to control them.
Ruth laid a cool little touch on the woman’s other hand that lay in her lap:
“Please forgive me!” she said, “I wasn’t sure. I know it must be awful,—cruel—for you!”
“He—is all I have left!” the woman breathed with a quick controlled gasp, “but, of course—it was—right that he should go!”
She set her lips more firmly and blinked off at the blur of pretty homes on her right without seeing any of them.
“He would have gone sooner, only he thought he ought not to leave me till he had to,” she said with another proud little quiver in her voice, as if having once spoken she must go on and say more, “I kept telling him I would get on all right—but he always was so careful of me—ever since his father died!”
“Of course!” said Ruth tenderly turning her face away to struggle with a strange smarting sensation in her own eyes and throat. Then in a low voice she added:
“I knew him, you know. I used to go to the same school with him when I was a little bit of a girl.”
The woman looked up with a quick searching glance and brushed the tears away firmly.
“Why, aren’t you Ruth Macdonald? Miss Macdonald, I mean—excuse me! You live in the big house on the hill, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m Ruth Macdonald. Please don’t call me Miss. I’m only nineteen and I still answer to my little girl name,” Ruth answered with a charming smile.
The woman’s gaze softened.
“I didn’t know John knew you,” she said speculatively. “He never mentioned——”
“Of course not!” said the girl anticipating, “he wouldn’t. It was a long time ago when I was seven and I doubt if he remembers me any more. They took me out of the public school the next year and sent me to St. Mary’s for which I’ve never quite forgiven them, for I’m sure I should have got on much faster at the public school and I loved it. But I’ve not forgotten the good times I had there, and John was always good to the little girls. We all liked him. I haven’t seen him much lately, but I should think he would have grown to be just what you say he is. He looks that way.”
Again the woman’s eyes searched her face, as if she questioned the sincerity of her words; then apparently satisfied she turned away with a sigh:
“I’d have liked him to know a girl like you,” she said wistfully.
“Thank you!” said Ruth brightly, “that sounds like a real compliment. Perhaps we shall know each other yet some day if fortune favors us. I’m quite sure he’s worth knowing.”
“Oh, he is!” said the little mother, her tears brimming over again and flowing down her dismayed cheeks, “he’s quite worth the best society there is, but I haven’t been able to manage a lot of things for him. It hasn’t been always easy to get along since his father died. Something happened to our money. But anyway, he got through college!” with a flash of triumph in her eyes.
“Wasn’t that fine!” said Ruth with sparkling eyes, “I’m sure he’s worth a lot more than some of the fellows who have always had every whim gratified. Now, which street? You’ll have to tell me. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know this part of town very well. Isn’t it pretty down here? This house? What a wonderful clematis! I never saw such a wealth of bloom.”
“Yes, John planted that and fussed over it,” said his mother with pride as she slipped unaccustomedly out of the car to the sidewalk. “I’m very glad to have met you and it was most kind of you to bring me home. To tell the truth”—with a roguish smile that reminded Ruth of her son’s grin—“I was so weak and trembling with saying good-bye and trying to keep up so John wouldn’t know it, that I didn’t know how I was to get home. Though I’m afraid I was a bit discourteous. I couldn’t bear the thought of talking to a stranger just then. But you haven’t been like a stranger—knowing him, and all——”
“Oh,