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 For the first time there came into his soul the sweet and terrible realisation that his own flesh and blood had become one with Ruth's in the greatest miracle of earth, the heart of a woman—a woman who could live and suffer and whose heart could break even as her mother's! Her eyes were all his, her hair a perfect mixture of the pigments with which theirs had been coloured. The strength of the man trembled with tender pride and wonder as he looked at her—his living marriage vow, written out before his eyes in a beautiful poem of flesh and blood. In the gentle beauty of her face he saw reflected himself blended with the young vision of Ruth as he had first met her a laughing girl—the little stranger a growing woman, himself and his first love dream in one. Her face held him fascinated.

Kate watched him furtively.

The doctor examined and dressed Lucy's wound, and told Ruth it must be sewed up at once if the child were saved from an ugly scar that would disfigure her for life. He pronounced the heart action too weak from the shock to use an anesthetic.

"It can only be done, madam," he gravely said to her, "if you can get her consent to endure the pain."

"Will you bear it, dear?" the mother asked.

She raised herself up and beckoned to her father.

Gordon had heard the doctor's remark, came at once and bent over her.