It can do no good; it cannot bring back the dead," said Mr Bellingham, distressed at witnessing her distress.
"I know it cannot," murmured Ruth; "and that is why I cry.

I cry because nothing will ever bring them back again." She sobbed afresh, but more gently, for his kind words soothed her, and softened, if they could not take away, her sense of desolation.
"Come away; I cannot have you stay here, full of painful associations as these rooms must be.

Come"-- raising her with gentle violence--"show me your little garden you have often told me about.
Near the window of this very room, is it not?
See how well I remember everything you tell me." He led her round through the back part of the house into the pretty old-fashioned garden.

There was a sunny border just under the windows, and clipped box and yew-trees by the grass-plat, further away from the house; and she prattled again of her childish adventures and solitary plays.

When they turned round they saw the old man, who had hobbled out with the help of his stick, and was looking at them with the same grave, sad look of anxiety.
Mr Bellingham spoke rather sharply: "Why does that old man follow us about in that way?
It is excessively impertinent of him, I think." "Oh, don't call old Thomas impertinent.