The boy saw how absorbed she was, and felt that there was no use in
waiting to speak to her, to tell her of the vague alarm which had seized
him. And then what was there to tell her or any one? He would only be
laughed at for fancying things, as he often had been before, and
remembering this, he crept off to his own cabin and went to bed. But he
could not go to sleep for a long time, and when he awoke at dawn the
formless dread was still dark in his mind, like some fearsome shape
behind an impenetrable curtain. And there it stayed all the day through,
never quite coming out into the light, but growing steadily larger and
darker and more terrible as the long heavy hours wore on. When--at
last--the dusk began to creep down the river, he grew so restless in his
nameless misery that he wandered into the forest, and there met the
doctor riding along the path on the way to his lonely cabin.
Paul's face brightened at the sight of the boy; he had always liked
him, and had been drawn to him before knowing of Ruth's existence. Still
the thought of her was now foremost in his mind as he looked at David.
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