She drew from Drake's arms, pushed him from her, stood for a moment shakily, with covered eyes.
“Ruth,” called Ventnor softly.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Martin—I forgot—” She ran to him, held him tight, face hidden in his breast. His hand rested on the clustering brown curls, tenderly.
“Martin.” She raised her face to him. “Martin, it's GONE! I'm—ME again! All ME! What happened? Where's Norhala?”
I started. Did she not know? Of course, lying bound as she had in the vanished veils, she could have seen nothing of the stupendous tragedy enacted beyond them—but had not Ventnor said that possessed by the inexplicable obsession evoked by the weird woman Ruth had seen with her eyes, thought with her mind?
And had there not been evidence that in her body had been echoed the torments of Norhala's? Had she forgotten? I started to speak—was checked by Ventnor's swift, warning glance.
“She's—over in the Pit,” he answered her quietly. “But do you remember nothing, little sister?”
“There's something in my mind that's been rubbed out,” she replied. “I remember the City of Cherkis—and your torture, Martin—and my torture—”
Her face whitened; Ventnor's brow contracted anxiously. I knew for what he watched—but Ruth's shamed face was all human; on it was no shadow nor trace of that alien soul which so few hours since had threatened us.
“Yes,” she nodded, “I remember that. And I remember how Norhala repaid them. I remember that I was glad, fiercely glad, and then I was tired—so tired. And then—I come to the rubbed-out place,” she ended perplexedly.