"Well"--he gave a short, impatient laugh--"we can hardly pretend--can we?--that it doesn't concern you." "I do not pretend it," she answered. "I am yours, to deal with as you will; to dismiss when you choose. I can never owe you anything but gratitude." "Ruth, will you marry me?" He said it with the accent of passion, stepping half a pace forward, holding out his hands. She winced and drew back a little; she, too, holding out her hands, but with the palms turned downward. Upon that movement his passion hung fire. (Was it actual passion, or rather a surrender to the inevitable--to a feeling that it had all happened fatally, beyond escape, that now--beautiful, wonderful as she had grown--he could never do without her? At any rate their hands, outstretched thus, did not meet.) "You talked lightly just now," she said, and with the smallest catch in her voice, "of vows made in haste. You forget your vow that after three years I should go back--go back whence you took me--and choose." "No," he corrected. "My promise was that you should go back and announce your choice. If some few months are to run, nothing hinders your choosing here and now. I do not ask you to marry me before the term is out, but only to make up your mind. You hear what I offer?" She swept him a low, obedient bow. "I do, and it is much to me, my dear lord. Oh, believe me, it is very much! . . . But I do not think I want to be your wife--thus." "You could not love me? Is that what you mean?" "Not love you?" Her voice, sweet and low, choked on the words. "Not love you?" she managed to repeat. "You, who came to me as a god-- to me, a poor tavern drudge--who lifted me from the cart, the scourge; lifted me out of ignorance, out of shame? Lord--love--doubt what you will of me--but not that!" "You do love me? Then why--" He paused, wondering. The impalpable barrier hung like a mist about his wits. "Did Andromeda not love Perseus, think you?" she asked lightly, recovering her smile, albeit her eyes were dewy. "I am dull, then," he confessed. "I certainly do not understand." "You came to me as a god when you saved me. Shall you come to me as less by an inch when you stoop to love me?" "Ah!" he said, as if at length he comprehended; "I was drunk last night, and you must have time to get that image out of your mind." She shook her head slowly. "You did not ask me last night to marry you. I shall always, I think, be able to separate an unworthy image of you, and forget it." "Then you must mean that I am yet unworthy." "My dear lord," she said after a moment or two, in which she seemed to consider how best to make it plain to him, "you asked me just now to marry you, but not because you knew me to be worthy; and though you may command what you choose, and I can deny you nothing, I would not willingly be your wife for a smaller reason. Nor did you ask me in the strength of your will, your passion even, but in their weakness. Am I not right?" He was dumb.