After the girl had gone away, Ruth stood alone beside the cot and looked with great commiseration on the almost senseless clay before her ... on the staring eyes and sullen, dark-skinned pallor of the heavily scarred face ... on the lips that once wore careless smiles but, now, were drawn and pale ... on the broad shoulders and powerful muscled arms. As she gazed at him it seemed to her a very pitiful condition under which he labored; she wondered why it had to be as it was with this strong, untutored man; she wondered why he had to lay his strong, young body on the altar of his passions and see it consumed as it had been by hate and treachery; and, then, she remembered the service upon which he had just been bent ... and her heart yearned over him for that alone; she leaned above his face and searched it for a sign of returning strength but found none there; his eyes stared into hers, it seemed, and then they sought the moving shadows on the canvas overhead. Ruth raised her head from gazing into Manuello's eyes and seemed to see, above the cot on which he lay, another and a different form yet like to that she saw inert before her; it was as if a glorified replica of the man were floating over him; in many ways it was exactly like the Manuello lying there upon that little cot, and, yet, the form was more ethereal ... more delicate ... more beautiful than he could ever be and live upon the earthly plane where he had found so many things to lead him down and seldom found a single thing to lead him higher, or, at least, found anything that he could fully understand, for, although Father Felix tried to show him how to go to climb to better thoughts, he had not seen the steps at all but blundered on along the path he found himself upon. As Ruth began to realize the change that she had seen take place, a rosy flush crept over her fair face, she clasped her hands and bowed her head in silent prayer: "Father in heaven," she thought, "look down in mercy on this soul about to come before You for Your judgment. Have pity on his faults for they were very many ... have mercy on him, for his sins were very heavy in his human life. He did not know the way to go, dear Father ... he could not see the steps at all. Have pity on him for he will have need of pity such as only You can give to him. Amen."