"But you have not. It is madness. You could not forget our life. Last night I lay alone in silence, with wide-open eyes, dreaming it all over again. This woman I know is more beautiful than I--three years younger; her hair is gold, mine the raven's. She is fair and full and tall, and I am dark and small; but, Frank, dear, love is more than eyes and hair and lips and form. We have been made one in our flesh and blood and inmost soul. There is no other man than you for me. There is no music save your voice." "Yet, if you feel this for me, and I thus wait in love on another, how can I live the lie?" "Can you forget the sunlit days of our past?" she pleaded wistfully. "When you lay on the sands of the beach in old Virginia and held my hand while I read to you, idly dreaming through that wonderful summer before our first-born came sailing into port from God's blue sea! You said I was beautiful then. And you were so tender and gracious in your strength. No other woman can ever be to you this first girl-mother." Her voice melted into a sob. She tried to go on and bit her swollen lips. Then she rose quietly, and walked to the window and looked down at the city below, whose roar had drowned the music of her life. He sat silent, waiting for her to regain her strength. He knew that he had the power of hypnotic suggestion over her in his iron will, and that she was beginning to recognise the inevitable. She turned and faced him again, the hungry fires in her eyes burning with mystic radiance. A tiny stream of blood ran down from her lip and stood in the dimple of her chin. She drew a delicate lace handkerchief from her bosom and wiped the blood away until it ceased to flow. And then in low accents she said: "You are going to leave me, my love. I feel the cold chill on my heart. It is God's will; I bow to it. One look into your dear eyes, one last embrace, one farewell kiss, and you will be gone. A little gift I will make you in this, the saddest, lowliest hour my soul has ever known. This handkerchief, stained with blood from lips you have kissed so tenderly in the past--that bled to-day because I tried to keep back the cries of a broken heart. I ask that you keep this as a token of my love." She handed it to him and Gordon placed it in his pocket with a sigh, brushing a tear from his own eyes. CHAPTER XIV THE VOICE OF THE SIREN Gordon left the house with a lingering look at Ruth's window and turned his face toward Gramercy Park, where another woman was waiting for his footstep. He had suffered intensely in the scene with his wife. He did not believe it possible that she retained such power over him. He drew a deep breath of relief that it was over. Her pride would come to the rescue; for he knew that with her tenderness she combined strength, and with her delicacy, supreme energy.