“I didn’t tell you that Ruth saved my life.”
Gordon turned suddenly.
“Yes, and it was a shock to me I’ll never get over. I don’t know whether I could have done as much for her under similar circumstances, with two children clinging to me and life depending on a moment’s time perhaps. But she did it, swiftly and beautifully. To tell you the truth, I’ve quite fallen in love with her. She is a wonderful little woman. I’ve been sitting here for hours wondering at the meanness of a man who could desert her. Those great soulful eyes of hers! When I looked up into them, crying like a poor coward for life—I, who had robbed her of what she held dearer than life—I saw only a tender mother’s soul looking down at me. Frank, I fear your spell over me is broken. You’re a poor piece of clay. The blaze in that car lit up some corners of my soul I never saw before. I think I’ll despise all men and love all women after to-day. What fools and puppets we are!”
The man made no reply. He only looked out the window at the flying landscape and saw the sweet face of a little girl.
CHAPTER XXVII — VENUS VICTRIX —
The flames of those burning cars, leaping into the skies above the tops of the storm-tossed trees, had lighted some dark places in Gordon’s soul, and he was sobered by the revelation.
The clasp of Ruth’s arms about his neck, the warm touch of her plump figure, the pressure of her lips on his, and the passionate murmur of the low contralto voice in his ears, “My own dear love!” thrilled him with tenderest memories.
He sat by Kate’s side brooding over the days and nights of their married life. Baffled and puzzled, his mind would come back with everlasting persistence to the strange feeling that held him to Ruth—a subtle and sweet mystery, the most intimate relation the soul and body can ever bear on earth, the union in love in the morning of life and its tender blossoming into a living babe.