Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/207

202 looked out into the night. When she turned back into the room it was apparent, from the look on her face, that her resolution was fixed.

"Philip," she said, "I believe it will be better for both of us to break our engagement to marry."

"Ruth, you are beside yourself!"

"No; I am quite sane, and I am very much in earnest. I have thought it all out, and I have made up my mind. We are better apart. I release you from any obligation on your part; I want to be released from any obligation on mine."

"Ruth! I can't do that. It's not necessary. It's absurd! Within the next six months this trouble will all have blown over. Must I do without you for a lifetime because of a flurry like this?"

He went toward her and would have taken her hands in his, but she moved away from him.

"No, Philip, it's not absurd. This trouble, as you say, may all have gone by in six months; but that doesn't matter. I am convinced to-night that we are so—so fundamentally different; so diametrically opposed to each other in all of our ideals concerning those things which are really worth while, that there never could be any harmony between us, never. It is fortunate that we have discovered it in time."

"Ah, but you mistake the true basis for harmony. It doesn't lie in having the same religious beliefs, or even in having the same ethical ideals. It lies in"

"Please don't, Philip! You only hurt me; and it's useless. My mind is completely made up, and I want to end it—now."

He looked at her for a long time without answering. He was debating with himself. Perhaps, after all, she was right. Perhaps it would be wise to give her rein to-night, to release her from her promise, and to win her back when she should be disillusioned, as in time she surely would be. And yet he could not quite