"It is because you are not one," she answered calmly, "that you will do this. It is because you are loyal and true that you will not stand by and see this crime done."
"Betray my oath?"
"You never swore to taking the life of a fellow-creature; least of all your king's."
He was silent. She had indeed spoken the truth; yet how could he bring himself to acknowledge to her, what he shrank from admitting to his own heart, the weakness of that easy nature of his, which had brought him to this terrible pass? His one thought had been to "keep neighbourly," as he called it, with difficult Master Rumbold. To give the maltster offence, was never to see Ruth again, and that was an unendurable thought. And so, hardly conscious whither he was drifting, he suddenly found himself on the edge of this abyss of crime, from which the soft, sweet, but resolute voice at his side now warned him back ere it was too late. "Choose," she said.
Lawrence decides.
"I cannot," he answered, turning and gazing sadly down on the pale agonized face which had never before seemed so dear to him. "There is no choice for me, Ruth, but to go."
"And Heaven reward you!" she said, a ray of gladness breaking into her tearful eyes as she laid her hand on his arm.
"Farewell then, Ruth!" he said with an almost imperceptible shrug; "and if we should never meet again—." He paused. "Farewell then, Ruth."
Gone.
And turning away his face, as if he dared not again meet the sight of hers, he took her little hand in his and wrung it fast. Then springing to the window ledge, he flung the pane wide open, and planting one foot firmly on the fretted stonework outside, was lost in the darkness.