nd ultra
refinement. Generations ago Ruth's type had been perfected; she and
others of her kind, were but repetitions.

Her girlhood had been a brief pause before she had entered her
fore-ordained womanhood--a mere waiting for the inevitable. Thus, Dale
had _last_ beheld her--so his photograph of her had fixed her in his
mind. He saw her now the same, outwardly, and the placidity of the
oft-repeated type held her afar from his rugged place.

Dale himself had been tossed into the fire of temptation, in the rough.
He had fallen to the depths but to rise--a better and stronger man with
the dross burned out. The strong, primitiveness of him was as alien to
anything that was in Ruth as if the two had never seen each other
before.

Like a man struggling with the recollections of a pre-incarnation, Dale
sought to find a semblance of the old passion and fire this woman had
once roused in him. Not even a reflection of them could he summon. Had
she entered his life two years before she might still have been able to
fan the embers into flame among the ashes; now she was powerless! Love,
a great overpowering love, a love having its roots in the life of the
woods and primitive things--held the man for its own.

Looking into the deep eyes that once had pleaded with hers, Ruth Dale,
sitting in the lonely shack, wondered why she could not cope with this
critical situation. It grieved and perplexed her--but it did not daunt
her. Sweet and retiring as she was, and _consciously_ self-forgetful as
she believed herself, Ruth was what ages had made her. Had her
subconscious self asserted itself, it would have boldly proclaimed its
absolute superiority over other women of such make as poor Joyce
Lauzoon. Not merely in the other's shocking lack of moral sense--but in
very essence.

John Dale had suffered--and had tried, in weak man-fashion, to solace
himself. The world had helped to train Ruth Dale. While not admitting
that there should be any palliation for the double code--or even the
appearance of it--such women as she recognized it, and were able, under
sufficiently convincing circumstances, to deal with it. There were
reasons, heaven knew, why she, Ruth Dale, should be lenient with this
silent man across the hearth. The white-souled innocence in her thanked
God, in this brief silence, that the man was _not_ as evil as many a
man, under the circumstances, might have been. She believed Joyce's
statement. It was wonderful, it was most