Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/372

 "Then for my sake, I beg of you—you are a woman. You have loved. Have mercy on me! You asked me once for help—did I fail you?"

The blond face softened.

"No, you didn't. I'm sorry for you. If it were your life, I'd save it if I swore a thousand lies—but for him, the brute—I can feel him strangling me now—you have not felt his hands on your throat."

"No," said the soft contralto voice, "not on my throat; it would have been a relief to have felt them there. They were on my soul. But I love him"

Kate was relentless, and Ruth left, shivering with anguish and angry pride.

The new trial dragged its length to the second jury. Ruth spent and pledged the last dollar of her fortune.

Once more she heard the foreman, in tones that seemed far off in space, say the fatal word—

"Guilty!"

She stood by his side again before the judge and heard the words of death fall from his lips, this time with blanched face and cold little fingers locked in agony.

Again the gates at Sing Sing closed, and a woman turned her footsteps toward the Governor's Mansion at Albany.