`Don't. Don't,' said Tom. `Why do you hide your face, my dear!'

Then in a burst of tears, it all broke out at last.

`Oh Tom, dear Tom, I know your secret heart. I have found it out; you couldn't hide the truth from me. Why didn't you tell me? I am sure I could have made you happier, if you had! You love her, Tom, so dearly!'

Tom made a motion with his hand as if he would have put his sister hurriedly away; but it clasped upon hers, and all his little history was written in the action. All its pathetic eloquence was in the silent touch.

`In spite of that,' said Ruth, `you have been so faithful and so good, dear; in spite of that, you have been so true and self-denying, and have struggled with yourself; in spite of that, you have been so gentle, and so kind, and even-tempered, that I have never seen you give a hasty look, or heard you say one irritable word. In spite of all, you have been so cruelly mistaken. Oh Tom, dear Tom, will this be set right too! Will it, Tom? Will you always have this sorrow in your breast; you who deserve to be so happy; or is there any hope?'

And still she hid her face from Tom, and clasped him round the neck, and wept for him, and poured out all her woman's heart and soul in the relief and pain of this disclosure.

It was not very long before she and Tom were sitting side by side, and she was looking with an earnest quietness in Tom's face. Then Tom spoke to her thus: cheerily, though gravely.

`I am very glad, my dear, that this has passed between us. Not because it assures me of your tender affection (for I was well assured of that before), but because it relieves my mind of a great weight.'

Tom's eyes glistened when he spoke of her affection; and he kissed her on the cheek.

`My dear girl,' said Tom: `with whatever feeling I regard her;' they seemed to avoid the name by mutual consent; `I have long ago -- I am sure I may say from the very first -- looked upon it as a dream. As something that might possibly have happened under very different circumstances, but which can never be. Now, tell me. What would you have set right?'

She gave Tom such a significant little look, that he was obliged to take it for an answer whether he would or no; and to go on.

`By her own choice and free consent, my love, she is betrothed to Martin; and was, long before either of them knew of my existence. You would have her betrothed to me?'

`Yes,' she said directly.

`Yes,' rejoined Tom, `but that might be setting it wrong, instead of right. Do you think,' said Tom, with a grave smile, `that even if she had never seen him, it is very likely she would have fallen in love with Me?'

`Why not, dear Tom?'

Tom shook his head, and smiled again.

`You think of me, Ruth,' said Tom, `and it is very natural that you should, as if I were a character in a book; and you make it a sort of poetical justice that I should, by some impossible means or other, come, at last, to marry the person I love. But there is a much higher justice than poetical justice, my dear, and it does not order events upon the same principle. Accordingly, people who read about heroes in books, and choose to make heroes of themselves out of books, consider it a very fine thing to be discontented and gloomy, and misanthropical, and perhaps a little blasphemous, because they cannot have everything ordered for their individual accommodation. Would you like me to become one of that sort of people?'