Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/247

 will be silent if you command. But you cannot keep me away. If you leave me, I will follow you to the ends of the earth."

Ruth was softly crying.

"You must not cry, my love. I will make your life glorious, and light every shadow with the tenderness of a strong man's worship."

"And you love me like this when another has robbed my soul and body of their treasures and cast me aside?" she asked, wistfully.

His mouth suddenly tightened and his eyes flashed.

"Yes, and I'd love you so if you were broken and every trace of beauty gone. My love would be so warm and tender and true it would bring back the light into your eyes, the roses to your cheeks, and life even to your dead soul."

"How strange the ways of God!" she exclaimed, through her tears.

He looked at her with yearning tenderness.

"But you are not old or broken, Ruth. You have grown more beautiful. This great sorrow has smoothed from your face every line of fretfulness and worry, and lighted it with the mystery and pathos of an unearthly beauty. It shines from your heroic soul until your whole being has come into harmony with it. I loved you in the past; I worship you now."

She turned on him a look of gratitude.

"Worry and jealousy did exhaust me. I am