But Chase shook Dolly off with a motion of his shoulder. Ruth, too, paid no heed to her sister; she looked straight at her husband, not defiantly, but drearily; she went on with her tale almost mechanically, and with the same desperate calmness as before. "So I went to him; I left my horse here, and went up through the woods. But he had Marion Barclay there; I saw her. And I saw his face, the expression of his face, as he talked to her; it is Marion he loves!" "I could have told you that. At least I could have told you that he has been trying to get that girl for a long time," said Chase, bitterly. "But there was nothing in that to hold him back as regards _you_. And it hasn't held him back; it hasn't prevented him from--But he shall answer for this! Answer to _me_." The rage in his face was deep; his eyes gleamed; his hands were clinched. Dolly turned cold. "He will _kill_ Walter," she thought. "Oh, what will he do to Ruth?" Ruth had left her chair; she came and stood before her husband. "He isn't to blame, Horace. I would tell you if he were; I should like to see Marion Barclay suffer! But if you go to him, he will only laugh at you, and with reason; for he has never cared for me, and he has never even pretended to care; I see that now. It is _I_ who have been in love with _him_. It began that first winter we spent in Florida," she went on. She had returned to her place behind the chair, and her eyes were again fixed upon her husband's face. "And when he told me, suddenly, that he was going to California, going for years, I could not breathe. Then, when Jared died, and mother died, and you were so good to me, I tried to forget him. But as soon as I saw him again I knew that it was of no use--no sort of use!" "You'll never make me believe that _he_ did nothing all this time," said Chase, savagely. "That he didn't profit--that he didn't take advantage--" But Ruth shook her head. "No. Perhaps he amused himself a little. Once or twice he said a few words. But that was all. And even this was called out by me--by _my_ love. Left to himself, he always drew back, he always stopped. But _I_--I never did! You must believe me about this--I mean about its having been _my_ doing. How can I make you believe it? If I say that by my mother's memory, by Jared's, what I have told you is true, will you believe it then? Very well; I _do_ say so." Exhausted, she put her face down upon her hands on the top of the chair-back. The firelight, which was now brilliant, had revealed her clearly. Her figure in the homespun dress looked wasted; in her face there was now no beauty, the irregularity of its outlines was conspicuous, the bright color was gone, the eyes were dull and dead. Something in her bowed head touched Chase keenly. A memory of her as she was when he married her came before him, the radiant young creature who had given herself to him so willingly and so joyously.