"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast and then extending it in the air, "I am free." Ruth's eyes watched him like one in torture. "How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free before." "Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says she is my wife." "You told me she was not." "It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her, but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up, and I thought she was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a marriage in England." "Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand. "I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"--he was becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling--"I meet a friend, a noble heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"--Ruth's hand was trembling--"and last night he finds out by a chance that she was not a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet alive, that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here." Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears. He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now appeared quite _emue_. She was sobbing passionately. Tears came into his own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms and waited. How suggestive in itself is a noble attitude! After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and, raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was relaxed. "I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free you will still marry me." Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture. "I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet--figure to yourself--he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up all. I am still married--_Ou!_--while he--But he is noble, he is sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"--with great solemnity--"do you love him even as he loves you?" There was a moment's pause.