ness cannot properly be attributed to his
illness, though its accent might be. For a time he would be the
grim Protestant Flagellant, pursuing the idea of self-castigation.
That he was immolating Ruth on the altar of his conscience never
broke in upon his thought for consideration. The fanatic has no
such word in his vocabulary.

Ruth had not expected to be kissed; so the omission passed unnoted.
For her it was sufficient to know that somebody wanted her, that
never again would she be alone, that always this boy with the
dreams would be depending upon her.

A strange betrothal!--the primal idea of which was escape! The
girl, intent upon abrogating for ever all legal rights of the
father in the daughter, of rendering innocuous the thing she had
now named the Terror: the boy, seeking self-crucifixion in
expiation of his transgression, changing a peccadillo into
damnation!

It was easy for Ruth to surrender to the idea, for she believed she
was loved; and in gratitude it was already her determination to
give this boy her heart's blood, drop by drop, if he wanted it. To
her, marriage would be a buckler against the two evils which
pursued her.

There was nothing on the Tablets of Moses that forebade Spurlock
marrying Ruth; there were no previous contracts. And yet, Spurlock
was afraid of the doctor; so was Ruth. They agreed that they must
marry at once, this morning, before the doctor could suspect what
was toward. The doctor would naturally offer a hundred objections;
he might seriously interfere; so he must be forestalled.

What marriage really meant (aside from the idea of escape), Ruth
had not the least conception, no more than a child. If she had any
idea at all, it was something she dimly recalled from her books:
something celestially beautiful, with a happy ending. But the
clearly definite thing was the ultimate escape. Wherein she
differed but little from her young sisters.

That is what marriage is to most young women: the ultimate escape
from the family, from the unwritten laws that govern children.
Whether they are loved or unloved has no bearing upon this desire
to test their wings, to try this new adventure, to take this leap
into the dark.

Spurlock possessed a vigorous intellect, critical, disquisitional,
creative; and yet he saw nothing remarkable in the girl's readiness
to marry him! An obsession is a blind spot.

"We must marry at once! The doctor may put me on the boat and force
you to remain