Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/366

 When she declared that Gordon's wounds were self-inflicted, he stared at her in dazed wonder and gasped to Ruth:

"Merciful God, is she deliberately lying, or does she believe it?"

Ruth did not answer, but slipped her warm little hand in his and pressed it. His fingers were like icicles.

Gordon seemed to sink into a stupor and take no further note of what was going on in the room.

He turned around, placed his arm on the chair, and fixed his eyes on Ruth, looking, looking! As he felt her hot hand trying to warm the chill of death in his own, he followed every movement of a muscle of her face with hypnotic intensity.

When they led him back to the prison van his shoulders drooped with mortal weariness. He had lived a lifetime in a day, and his hair had turned gray.