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 Ruth's face softened and a tender smile lit it once more.

"Frank, my darling, you cannot think me so base? You know there is not a drop of mean blood in me. Can gold pay for my heart's desire? The price for my beloved? Pile the earth with diamonds to the stars, I'd hold it trash for the touch of your hand!"

The man moved nervously.

"You must have some sense, Ruth. Surely, I'm not worth all this if I leave you so. You must take this money."

She moved closer to him and held up her delicate hands, with the sunlight gleaming through the red blood of her tapering fingers.

"You see these hands? They have only known the gentle tasks of love. Well, I'll scrub, sew and wash the clothes of working-men before one dollar of her gold shall stain them!"

"You cannot be so foolish," he protested, impatiently. "Besides, she has given me this money to give to you."

"Ah, my love," she went on, as though she had not heard his last words, "if you were frankly evil as other men, I might bear this shame with better grace. Others before me, as good as I, have borne its burden. But when I think that you are making your sin a religion, and that you are going to preach with the zeal of a prophet this gospel of the brute and call it freedom, how can I bear it?"