Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/255

 There was a letter from Dear Mother, the usual highly moral, complaining letter, and this had the usual depressing effect on him, and there was a letter from his father the cheerfulness of which was so obviously forced that it depressed him even more, and worst of all there was a letter from Ruth. She seldom wrote to him, and when she did she usually had something disagreeable to say. The present occasion was no exception.

Ruth and her husband, through friends recently returned from Paris, had heard all about Edward's "goings on" with "that woman" (Anne?) and were grieved and shocked beyond measure. She, Ruth, had felt her duty so strongly in the matter that she had not been able to rest until she had told the miserable tidings to Edward's father. She had indeed, at some inconvenience to herself, made the trip to Bartow for the purpose. That was that! Father would use his judgment about telling mother. Ruth hoped that he would not feel obliged to tell Dear Mother, as the knowledge would very likely kill her.

Ruth imagined that Edward must be so infatuated with that woman, or some other woman, that he could hardly find time to be interested in home news; still, she felt it her duty to set down such items as he ought, if only theoretically, to be interested in.