Suddenly the red blood leaped from her heart with a thought, "What God hath joined together man cannot put asunder!" King's face grew somber as he saw her elation. He knew that some mysterious spirit had suddenly dropped a veil between them. When they returned home she was very quiet and her dark eyes shone with unusual brilliance. "Ruth, you are thinking of that man," he said, with a scowl. She nodded gently. King trembled and his fists clenched. "I could kill him, the great egotistical brute! How strange the madness that binds a woman to the man to whom she first surrenders! I sometimes think it is the most blind, pathetic and tragic instinct that ever shadowed the soul of a human being. It is degrading. You are a woman of character and intelligence. You must shake off this peasant's mania." She shook her head with a yearning, mystic look. "I believe God had a great purpose when He made a woman's heart like that. I love him. My very soul and body have become in some mysterious way one with him." King's eyes blazed. "Yet he flaunts his love for another woman in your face." She flinched as from a blow, but answered tenderly. "Yes; he is mad now. The flesh has mastered the spirit in its struggle for the moment. She holds his body"--a pause and a smile--"but his soul is mine. He may not know it now. He will some day. I know it, and I abide God's time." "How long can you hold such a delusion, I wonder?" he asked, with angry amazement. "Forever." she softly whispered. He drew himself up with grim force. "I am going to win you, Ruth," he said, slowly lingering with his lips over her name as though he could taste its sweetness. He looked at her beautiful face and figure tenderly and with an intensity that gave to his eyes a strange glitter. She turned from him with a sigh and gazed on Gordon's portrait hanging over the mantel. "No, Morris. I have made up my mind to play my part in harmony with Love's eternal law. If the world is full of discord, I will still make the sweetest music my soul can sing. I will not try to drown the din, but in my own way sing in perfect time with the beat of God's heart. Perhaps some soul beside me on life's way will catch the note, and it will not be in vain. This may be a blind instinct, but it is not degrading. He who counts the beat of a sparrow's wing, teaches the stork her appointed time, and whispers his call to the swallow in the autumn wind, will not lead me astray." The man shaded his eyes with his hand as though to hide their misery. "You are throwing your sweet life away," he said, reproachfully.