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      24. THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE

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      She stared at him, as the blow fell, and then her glance turned slowly to Caroline who had uttered a sharp cry and sunk into a chair.

      “Help me, Ruth,” she implored pitifully. “No other person in the world can help me but you!”

      “Do you see that,” asked Ruth quietly of John Mark, “and still it doesn’t move you?”

      “Not a hairbreadth, my dear.”

      “But isn’t it absurd? Suppose I have my freedom, and I tell the police that in this house a girl against her will—”

      “Tush, my dear! You really do not know me at all. Do you think they can reach me? She may be a hundred miles away before you have spoken ten words to the authorities.”

      “But I warn you that all your holds on her are broken. She knows that you have no holds over her brother. She knows that Ronicky Doone has broken them all—that Jerry is free of you!”

      “Ronicky Doone,” said Mark, his face turning gray, “is a talented man. No doubt of it; his is a very peculiar and incisive talent, I admit. But, though he has broken all the old holds, there are ways of finding new ones. If you leave now, I can even promise you, my dear, that, before the next day dawns, the very soul of Caroline will be a pawn in my hands. Do you doubt it? Such an exquisitely tender, such a delicate soul as Caroline, can you doubt that I can form invisible bonds which will hold her even when she is a thousand miles away from me? Tush, my dear; think again, and you will think better of my ability.”

      “Suppose,” Ruth said, “I were to offer to stay?”

      He bowed. “You tempt me, with such overwhelming generosity, to become even more generous myself and set her free at once. But, alas, I am essentially a practical man. If you will stay with me, Ruth, if you marry me at once, why, then indeed this girl is as free as the wind. Otherwise I should be a fool. You see, my dear, I love you so that I must have you by fair means or foul, but I cannot put any chain upon you except your own word. I confess it, you see, even before this poor girl, if she is capable of understanding, which I doubt. But speak again—do you make the offer?”

      She hesitated, and he went on: “Be careful. I have had you once, and I have lost you, it seems. If I have you again there is no power in you— no power between earth and heaven to take you from me a second time. Give yourself to me with a word, and I shall make you mine forever. Then Caroline shall go free—free as the wind—to her lover, my dear, who is waiting.”

      He made no step toward her, and he kept his voice smooth and clear. Had he done otherwise he knew that she would have shrunk. She looked to him, she looked to Caroline Smith. The latter had suddenly raised her head and thrown out her hands, with an unutterable appeal in her eyes. At that mute appeal Ruth Tolliver surrendered.

      “It’s enough,” she said. “I think there would be no place for me after all. What could I do in the world except what you’ve taught me to do? No, let Caroline go freely, and I give my—”

      “Stop!”

      He checked her with his raised hand, and his eyes blazed and glittered in the dead whiteness of his face. “Don’t give me your word, my dear. I don’t want that chain to bind you. There might come a time when some power arose strong enough to threaten to take you from me. Then I want to show you that I don’t need your promise. I can hold you for myself. Only come to me and tell me simply that you will be mine if you can. Will you do that?”

      She crossed the room slowly and stood before him. “I will do that,” she said faintly, half closing her eyes. She had come so close that, if he willed, he could have taken her in his arms. She nerved herself against it; then she felt her hand taken, raised and touched lightly against trembling lips. When she stepped back she knew that the decisive moment of her life had been passed.

      “You are free to go,” said John Mark to Caroline. “Therefore don’t wait. Go at once.”

      “Ruth!” whispered the girl.

      Ruth Tolliver turned away, and the movement brought Caroline beside her, with a cry of pain. “Is it what I think?” she asked. “Are you making the sacrifice all for me? You don’t really care for him, Ruth, and—”

      “Caroline!” broke in John Mark.

      She turned at the command of that familiar voice, as if she had been struck with a whip. He had raised the curtain of the front window beside the door and was pointing up and across the street.

      “I see the window of Gregg’s room,” he said. “A light has just appeared in it. I suppose he is waiting. But, if you wish to go, your time is short —very short!”

      An infinite threat was behind the calmness of the voice. She could only say to Ruth: “I’ll never forget.” Then she fled down the hall and through the door, and the two within heard the sharp patter of her heels, as she ran down to the street.

      It was freedom for Caroline, and Ruth, lifting her eyes, looked into the face of the man she was to marry. She could have held out, she felt, had it not been for the sound of those departing footsteps, running so blithely toward a lifetime of happiness. Even as it was she made herself hold out. Then a vague astonishment came to clear her mind. There was no joy in the face of John Mark, only a deep and settled pain.

      “You see,” he said, with a smile of anguish, “I have done it. I have bought the thing I love, and that, you know, is the last and deepest damnation. If another man had told me that I was capable of such a thing, I’d have killed him on the spot. But now I have done it!”

      “I think I’ll go up to my room,” she answered, her eyes on the floor. She made herself raise them to his. “Unless you wish to talk to me longer?”

      She saw him shudder.

      “If you can help it,” he said, “don’t make me see the brand I have put on you. Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, cringe to me if you can help it.”

      “Very well,” she said.

      He struck his clenched hand against his face. “It’s the price,” he declared through his teeth, “and I accept it.” He spoke more to himself than to her, and then directly: “Will you let me walk up with you?”

      “Yes.”

      He took her passive arm. They went slowly, slowly up the stairs, for at each landing it seemed her strength gave out, and she had to pause for a brief rest; when she paused he spoke with difficulty, but with his heart in every word.

      “You remember the old Greek fable, Ruth? The story about all the pains and torments which flew out of Pandora’s box, and how Hope came out last —that blessed Hope—and healed the wounds? Here, a moment after the blow has fallen, I am hoping again like a fool. I am hoping that I shall teach you to forget; or, if I cannot teach you to forget, than I shall even make you glad of what you have done tonight.”

      The door closed on her, and she was alone. Raising her head she found she was looking straight across the street to the lighted windows of the rooms of Ronicky Doone and Bill Gregg. While she watched she saw the silhouette of a man and woman running to each other, saw them clasped in each other’s arms. Ruth dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

      25. UNHAPPY FREEDOM

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      Once out in the street Caroline had cast one glance of terror over her shoulder at the towering facade of the house of John Mark, then she fled, as fast as her feet would carry her, straight across the street and up the steps of the rooming house and frantically up the stairs, a panic behind her.

      Presently she

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