PAGE 3
Where The Heart Is
by
But there was a yet more painful ordeal in store for her that night in the billiard-room, had she but known it. The morrow’s bridegroom, Fred Danvers, having failed to execute an easy shot, some one accused him of possessing shaky nerves.
“You’ll never get through to-morrow if you can’t do an easy thing like that,” was the laughing remark.
Tots looked up.
“Oh, rot! The bridegroom has no business to suffer with the jumps. That’s the best man’s privilege. He does all the work, and has all the responsibility. Why, I’m shakin’ in my shoes whenever I think of to-morrow, but if it were my own weddin’ I shouldn’t turn a hair.”
Young Danvers guffawed at this.
“Bet you’ll turn the colour of this table when the time comes, if it ever does come, which I doubt!”
“Why?” questioned Tots.
Danvers laughed again, enjoying the joke. Tots was always more or less of a butt to his friends.
“In the first place, you’d never have the courage or the energy to propose. In the second, no girl would ever take you seriously. In the third–“
He broke off, struck silent by a wholly unexpected display of energy on the part of Tots, who had suddenly hurled a piece of chalk at him from the other end of the room. It hit him smartly on the shoulder, leaving a white patch to testify to the excellence of Tots’s aim.
“I beg your pardon,” said Tots mildly. “But you really shouldn’t talk such rot, particularly in the presence of my fiancee.”
He turned round to Ruth, who was shrinking into a corner behind him, and with a courtly gesture drew her forward.
“In the first place,” he said, addressing the assembled company with a good-humoured smile, “I had the courage and the energy to propose only this afternoon. In the second place, this lady did me the inestimable favour of takin’ me seriously. And in the third place, we’re goin’ to get married as soon as possible.”
In the astounded silence that followed these announcements, he stooped, with no exaggeration of reverence, and kissed the icy, trembling hand he held.
* * * * *
Ruth never knew afterwards how she came through those terrible moments. She was as one horror-stricken into acquiescence. She scarcely heard the nightmare buzz of congratulation all about her. The only thing of which she was vividly conscious, over and above her dumb anguish of consternation, was the fast grip of Tots’s hand. It seemed to hold her up, to sustain her, while the very soul of her was ready to faint with dismay.
She did not even remember later how she effected her escape at last, but she had a vague impression that Tots managed it for her. It was all very dreadful and incomprehensible. She felt as if she were suddenly caught in a trap from which there could never be any escape. And she was terrified beyond all reason.
All the night she lay awake, turning the matter over and over, but in every respect it presented to her a problem too complicated for her solution. When morning came she was tired out physically and mentally, conscious only of an ardent desire to flee from her perplexities.
Her cousin’s wedding occupied the minds of all, and she spent the earlier hours in comparative peace in the bustle of preparation. She saw nothing of Tots, and she hoped his responsibilities would keep him too busy to spare her any of his attention.
Vain hope! When she went to her room to don her bridesmaid’s dress, she found a small parcel awaiting her. With a sinking heart, she opened it, a jeweller’s box with a strip of paper wound about it. The paper contained a message in four words: “With love from Tots.”
A wild tumult arose within her, and her fingers shook so that she could scarcely remove the lid of the box. Succeeding at length, she stood motionless, staring with wide, scared eyes at the ring that lay shining in the sunlight, as though she beheld some evil charm. The diamonds flashed in her eyes and dazzled her, making her see nothing but tiny pin-points of intolerable light. Her heart thumped and raced as though it would choke her. Unconsciously she gasped for breath. That ring was to her another bar in the door of her prison-house.