e a woman--yield, and spare the man, what would you do?"

"I would say that she had been merciful and kind, and that one in this
world would pray for her when she needed prayers most."

"You mean when she was old,"--Mrs. Falchion shrank a little at the sound
of her own words. Now her careless abandon was gone; she seemed to be
following her emotions. "When she was old," she continued, "and came
to die? It is horrible to grow old, except one has been a saint--and
a mother.... And even then--have you ever seen them, the women of
that Egypt of which we spoke--powdered, smirking over their champagne,
because they feel for an instant a false pulse of their past?--See how
eloquent your mountains make me!--I think that would make one hard and
cruel; and one would need the prayers of a churchful of good women, even
as good--as you."

She could not resist a touch of irony in the last words, and Ruth, who
had been ready to take her hand impulsively, was stung. But she
replied nothing; and the other, after waiting, added, with a sudden
and wonderful kindness: "I say what is quite true. Women might dislike
you--many of them would--though you could not understand why; but you
are good, and that, I suppose, is the best thing in the world. Yes, you
are good," she said musingly, and then she leaned forward and quickly
kissed the girl's cheek. "Good-bye," she said, and then she turned her
head resolutely away.

They stood there both in the sunlight, both very quiet, but their hearts
were throbbing with new sensations. Ruth knew that she had conquered,
and, with her eyes all tearful, she looked steadily, yearningly at the
woman before her; but she knew it was better she should say little now,
and, with a motion of the hand in good-bye,--she could do no more,--she
slowly went to the door. There she paused and looked back, but the other
was still turned away.

For a minute Mrs. Falchion stood looking at the door through which the
girl had passed, then she caught close the curtains of the window, and
threw herself upon the sofa with a sobbing laugh.

"To her--I played the game of mercy to her!" she cried. "And she has his
love, the love which I rejected once, and which I want now--to my shame!
A hateful and terrible love. I, who ought to say to him, as I so long
determined: 'You shall be destroyed. You killed my sister, poor Alo;
if not with a knife yourself you killed her heart, and that is just the
same.' I never knew until now what