"Ruth, you must tell me everything."

She panted, but no longer struggled mentally or bodily.

"Because," she said, "even now, I could accept the man who was the true
sinner easier than the man who was sinned against! Not because of a
greater love; but because of the slime of the punishment that the one
was doomed to suffer.

"That's what life has done for him--and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't
you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him--and the old
love is growing stronger as--as Philip seems to be going further from
me--I shall always think of the hideous--detail that--he suffered. It
was what Philip could not face--it is what I--must!"

The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror.

Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose
white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing.

"Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have
borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone
that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your
duty--it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The
sin is the sin--but the man who _planned_ was more the master, than he
who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely--can you not see,
it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil
interpretation of the Creator!"

A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.

"No." The woman would not shield herself in this hour. "No; for you
forget Philip's cowardice--and weakness. But he was not--smirched with
society's remedy for wrong-doing. No; even if I found John had come out
of the--the detail, strong and purified, I know, as God hears me, I
should always, when most he needed me, see the _prisoner_ instead
of--him. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

She closed her eyes, and the great tears were pressed from under the
quivering lids.

Drew for very pity released the suffering face, but his hand rested on
the bent shoulder. Then out of the strain of the black hour, he asked a
question that seemed to have no part in the present trouble; no meaning.

"Ruth have you ever loved just for yourself--just because _you_ wanted
what you loved?"

"Just for myself? Who ever does in this world, I wonder?"

She sighed deeply, and sank back in the chair.

It was over at last. There was nothing now to do but to take up her
cross and follow as she could; there was no more to be