"For myself--" the haunted eyes fixed themselves upon Drew's rigid face--"for myself--in a strange fashion--and oh! you shall _not_ misunderstand me, I want to give to him that which I withheld from him when he needed it most. I want to bring back the gladness of life to him--if I can," she gasped; "it has all been such a hideous nightmare. If he wants me--if he wants me, he shall have me!" The words were flung out defiantly, fiercely. Drew started to his feet, and went quickly to her. In all his life he had never seen on a woman's face such desperation and remorse. As his friend's wife he had loved her as a sister. Her beauty had always fascinated and charmed him. To see her now, cast adrift on this troubled sea of love and fear, was a bitter, almost a terrifying sight. He bent over her, and raised her face firmly and gently with one trembling hand. He felt that he must calm and steady her by physical control. "Ruth," he said gently, but distinctly, "why do you look as you do? Tell me, what is in your heart?" The woman tried to shrink from the hold he had upon her. He saw that the vital point of her confession she would keep from him unless he commanded, and, if the future were to be saved from the grip of the miserable past, he and she must thoroughly understand each other. "Ruth, you must tell me everything." She panted, but no longer struggled mentally or bodily. "Because," she said, "even now, I could accept the man who was the true sinner easier than the man who was sinned against! Not because of a greater love; but because of the slime of the punishment that the one was doomed to suffer. "That's what life has done for him--and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him--and the old love is growing stronger as--as Philip seems to be going further from me--I shall always think of the hideous--detail that--he suffered. It was what Philip could not face--it is what I--must!" The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror. Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing. "Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your duty--it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The sin is the sin--but the man who _planned_ was more the master, than he who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely--can you not see, it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil interpretation of the Creator!" A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.