"That's what life has done for him—and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him—and the old love is growing stronger as—as Philip seems to be going further from me—I shall always think of the hideous—detail that—he suffered. It was what Philip could not face—it is what I—must!"
The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror.
Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing.
"Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your duty—it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The sin is the sin—but the man who planned was more the master, than he who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely—can you not see, it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil interpretation of the Creator!"
A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.
"No." The woman would not shield herself in this hour. "No; for you forget Philip's cowardice—and weakness. But he was not—smirched with society's remedy for wrong-doing. No; even if I found John had come out of the—the detail, strong and purified, I know, as God hears me, I should always, when most he needed me, see the prisoner instead of—him. Oh! Oh! Oh!"
She closed her eyes, and the great tears were pressed from under the quivering lids.
Drew for very pity released the suffering face, but his hand rested on the bent shoulder. Then out of the strain of the black hour, he asked a question that seemed to have no part in the present trouble; no meaning.
"Ruth have you ever loved just for yourself—just because you wanted what you loved?"
"Just for myself? Who ever does in this world, I wonder?"