"I do not hesitate!"
"You will rescue him from this terrible accusation? You will complete the engagement, and get that awful letter? To think that he is in this great danger, and does not know it! To think that his salvation lies in our hands. What I can do is nothing. It will be you that saves him."
"I cannot! I cannot!"
"Ruth Jessup! You refuse? You have the power to save him, and will not?"
"God help me! God help me, I cannot do it."
Lady Rose turned away from the girl haughtily, angrily.
"And I could think that she loved Walton Hurst," she said, in bitterness of heart.
"Oh, do not, do not condemn me. If you only knew—if you only knew," cried Ruth, wringing her hands in wild desperation.
"I know that you could save him from death, and his whole family from dishonor, and will not. That is enough. I will importune you no longer. Had it been me, I, the daughter of an earl, would have wedded that man, yes—though he were twice the fiend he is—rather than let this thunderbolt fall on a noble house, on as brave and true a man as ever lived."
"He is brave, he is true, and you are his peer. You are worthy of him, heart and soul, and I am not. But you might pity me a little, because I cannot do what would save him."