"Do you believe me when I tell you that, in this case, it is true?" Again the two held each other in a long challenge. Then: "Joyce, as God hears me, I _do_ believe you. Now I am more eager than ever to be your friend." "You--cannot be mine--but you must be his!" "His?" Ruth started back. "Yes. I do know--something of his life. He belonged--to your world. He had a great, a terrible trouble--but through it all he saw the stars, not the mud, and he came out of it--a strong, tender, brave man." A dull sob shook the low, sweet voice. "All the shameful sorrow served as a purpose to make him noble--and splendid; but his soul was sad and hurt. He never blamed any one, though there were others who should have suffered more than he. He just gave himself up to the chance of gaining good out of all the evil. Then he came here--to rest. But he could not help being kind and helpful. He found--me. He taught me, he gave me hope and showed me--how to live. Oh! you can never understand. You have always had life--I never had it until he took the blindness from me. "He tried to do the best for me--he wanted me to marry Jude Lauzoon. He tried to make Jude good, too--but that was more than even _he_ could accomplish. Then I'm--afraid I cannot tell you--this it might--soil your soul." "Go on." Ruth spoke hoarsely. She was spellbound and a deathly coldness crept over her. "Well, Jude dragged all of me down, down, down--all of me but the part that--Mr. Gaston had made. That part clung to him as if he were its God." "I see, I see. Go on!" "It was all low--and evil, that life with Jude, except the poor baby. That had a soul, too, but the dreadful body could not hold it. It had to go--and oh! I am so glad. "Then, in all the world, there was nowhere for me to go but--here. I did not mean to fling myself upon him. I came to save him. There was money Jude had--oh! it doesn't matter, but anyway, things happened, and I was left--on Mr. Gaston's mercy. "I had only one idea of men--then. You see Jude had almost made a beast of me, too." The great eyes shone until they burned into Ruth Dale's brain. "But Mr. Gaston rose high and far above my low fear and thought. How I hated myself then for daring to judge him by--Jude. No, he made a clean, holy place for me to live in. He saw no other way to help me--perhaps he did not look far enough in the future, it did not matter--but he never came down from his high place except to make me better by his heavenly goodness. "After a while it grew easy--after I comprehended his thought for me--and we were very happy--just as we might have been had we been brother and sister. I grew to think his own kind would know and understand how impossible it would be for him to be other than what he was; and for what the lower people thought I had no care. I was--just happy!