"Ruth!"
"I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father was a judge—he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was sentenced to five years—in prison! They said it was a light sentence."
"My God! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!"
"Don't! don't!" Ruth Dale put out her hands as if warding off a blow. "Haven't you guessed? Can you not think?"
Drew shook his head slowly. He did not seem to be able to think at all.
"Mrs. Dale died soon after. She had a weak heart—it killed her. Philip was everything to her—he was heavenly good in his attention and devotion. Somehow, I wonder what you will think of me, but suddenly I became possessed with a passion for making happier them whom John had blighted. I grappled with my own love—I knew it would kill me if I let it gain power over me. I knew I never could be anything to John—I was not the sort of woman, Ralph, who could love the sinner—forgetting the sin. I could forgive—I thought I could—but I remembered all the more sharply.
"Philip had always loved me. I saw my way. I would ignore the stigma on the family, I would marry Philip and carry what joy I could to him and his mother. My father tried to restrain me. He called me martyr, sacrifice, and all the rest, but I married—and I know I took comfort into poor Mrs. Dale's life, and—I never doubted what I did for Philip. But—" Ruth whispered the horrible secret—"John Dale took the money for—Philip! He never wanted it for himself. He never used one dollar of it. It was Philip who ran the family honour, and his own, into danger—he made it seem to John that to tide him over the critical hour would be to save them all and bring no harm. But he was wrong. The crash came. John never cringed under the blow. To his simple nature the mere act was enough. He did not try to shield himself by one word of explanation—he went away!"
Drew's throat and eyes burned. He seemed to know all this like an oft-told tale that still had power to awe and control him.
"Then the years of agonized consecration began for Philip. I never knew until a week before his death, but the memory scorches into my soul day by day now.
"You see I thought it was love for his brother, and the shame, that had changed Philip—and that endeared him to me. All the lightness and carelessness of manner departed. A great, strong, tenderness took their place. But you know, it was so that he came into your life. He had a wide sympathy and charity, for all—oh! how it drew people to him. But think of his suffering—alone and through all those years!