or me was so sincere, and so
strong, that he would have been willing to try to do almost anything
that I had asked. I believe in my soul that had I urged the matter of
personal salvation on his immediate attention, he would have given it
thought. But I _never_ did--_never_.

"Marion, even on that last evening of his life--I mean before he was
sick--when he himself invited the words, I was silent. I did not mean
to continue so; I meant, when I got ready, to speak to him about this
matter; I meant to do everything right; but I was determined to take my
own time for it, and I took it, and now he is _gone_! Marion, you know
nothing about such a sorrow as that! Now, why did I act in this insane
way?

"I know the reason, one of them at least; and the awful selfishness and
cowardice of it only brands me deeper. It was because I was afraid to
have him become a Christian man! I knew if he did I should have no
excuse for breaking the pledges that had passed between us; in plain
words, I would have no excuse for not marrying him; and I did not want
to do it! I felt that marriage vows would mean to me in the future what
they never meant in the past, and that there was really nothing in
common between Mr. Wayne and myself; that I could not assent to the
marriage service with him, and be guiltless before God. So to spare
myself, to have what looked like a conscientious excuse for breaking
vows that ought never to have been made, I deliberately sacrificed his
_soul_! Marion Wilbur, think of that!"

"You didn't mean to do that!" Marion said, in an awe-stricken voice; she
was astonished and shocked, and bewildered as to what to say.

Ruth answered her almost fiercely:

"No, I didn't mean to; and as to that, I never meant to do anything that
was not just right in my life; but I meant to have just exactly my own
way of doing things, and I tell you I took it. Now, Marion, while I
blame myself as no other person ever can, I still blame others. I was
never taught as I should have been about the sacredness of human loves,
and the awfulness of human vows and pledges. I was never taught that for
girls to dally with such pledges, to flirt with them, before they knew
anything about life or about their own hearts was a sin in the sight of
God. I ought to have been so taught.

"Perhaps if I had had a mother to teach me I should have been different;
but I am not even sure of that. Mothers seem to me to allow strange
trifling with these subjec