e woman herself was there,
speaking in every feature and glance. Ruth had listened with an
occasional change of colour, but also with an outward pride to which she
seemed suddenly to have grown. But her heart was sick and miserable. How
could it be otherwise, reading, as she did, the tale just told her in a
kind, of allegory, in all its warning, nakedness, and vengeance? But she
detected, too, an occasional painful movement of Mrs. Falchion's lips,
a kind of trouble in the face. She noticed it at first vaguely as she
listened to the music in the other room; but at length she interpreted
it aright, and she did not despair. She did not then follow her first
impulse to show that she saw the real meaning of that speech, and rise
and say, "You are insulting," and bid her good-day.

After all, where was the ground for the charge of insult? The words had
been spoken impersonally. So, after a moment, she said, as she drew a
glove from a hand slightly trembling: "And you honestly think it is the
case: that one having lived such a life as you describe so unusually,
would never be satisfied with a simple life?"

"My dear, never--not such a man as I describe. I know the world."

"But suppose not quite such an one; suppose one that had not been
so--intense; so much the social gladiator; who had business of life as
well,"--here the girl grew pale, for this was a kind of talk unfamiliar
and painful to her, but to be endured for her cause,--"as well as
'the flesh-pots of Egypt;' who had made no wicked mistakes--would he
necessarily end as you say?"

"I am speaking of the kind of man who had made such mistakes, and he
would end as I say. Few men, if any, would leave the world for--the
bandbox, shall I still say? without having a Nemesis."

"But the Nemesis need not, as you say yourself, be inevitable.
The person who holds the key of his life, the impersonation of his
mistake--"

"His CRIMINAL mistake," Mrs. Falchion interrupted, her hand with the
ivory knife now moveless in that belt of sunlight across her knees.

"His criminal mistake," Ruth repeated, wincing--"might not it become
changed into mercy, and the man be safe?"

"Safe? Perhaps. But he would tire of the pin-hole just the same.... My
dear, you do not know life."

"But, Mrs. Falchion," said the girl, now very bravely, "I know the
crude elements of justice. That is one plain thing taught here in the
mountains. We have swift reward and punishment--no hateful things call