gth put his arm round her, and drew
her to him. His voice came in a broken whisper of passionate entreaty
close to her ear.

"Ruth, I love you, and you love me. We belong to each other. We were
made for each other. Life is not possible apart. It must be together,
Ruth, always together, always--" and his voice broke down entirely.

Surely he was right. A love such as theirs overrode all petty barriers
of every-day right and wrong, and was a law unto itself. Surely it was
vain to struggle against Fate, against the soft yet mighty current which
was sweeping her away beyond all landmarks, beyond the sight of land
itself, out towards an infinite sea.

And the eyes she loved looked into hers with an agony of entreaty, and
the voice she loved spoke of love, spoke brokenly of unworthiness, and
an unhappy past, and of a brighter future, a future with _her_.

Her brain reeled; her reason had gone. Let her yield now. Surely, if
only she could think, if the power to think had not deserted her, it
was right to yield. The current was taking her ever swifter whither she
knew not. A moment more and there would be no going back.

She began to tremble, and, wrenching her hands out of his, pressed them
before her eyes to shut out the sight of the earnest face so near her
own. But she could not shut out his voice, and Charles's voice could be
very gentle, very urgent.

But at the eleventh hour another voice broke in on his, and spoke as one
having authority. Conscience, if accustomed to be disregarded on common
occasions, will rarely come to the fore with any decision in emergency;
but the weakest do not put him in a place of command all their lives
without at least one result--that he has learned the habit of speaking
up and making himself attended to in time of need. He spoke now,
urgently, imperatively. Her judgment, her reason were alike gone for the
time, but, when she had paced the solemn aisles of the woods an hour ago
in possession of them, had she then even thought of doing what she was
on the verge of doing now? What had happened during that hour to reverse
the steadfast resolve which she had made then? What she had thought
right an hour ago remained right now. What she would have put far from
her as dishonorable then remained dishonorable now, though she might be
too insane to see it.

Terror seized her, as of one in a dream who is conscious of impending
danger, and struggles to awake before it is too late. She started to