"How can I help it, Morris, if I love him?" she asked, piteously.

He raised his head, looked away, and softly said:

"Ruth, could you never love me?"

She was silent a moment and her lips trembled.

"If he dies, I cannot live," she gasped.

He leaned close, took her hand, and said:

"I'll order a stay of sentence for three months."

She kissed his hand, and murmured:

"Thank you."

From the telegraph office at Albany over the wires to Sing Sing's house of death flew the message:

"Sentence stayed for three months while the Governor considers your pardon. Faith and hope eternal. RUTH."

The next express carried her to him with the copy of the Governor's order in her bosom.

The warden smiled and congratulated her. She had long before won his heart, and there was no favour within the limits of law that he had not granted to the man she loved.

Ruth looked at Gordon tenderly through the barred opening of his cell.

Her heart ached as she saw the ashen pallor of his face and the skin beginning to draw tight and slick across the protruding cheek-bones of his once magnificent face. Three years of prison had bent his shoulders and reduced his giant frame to a mere shadow of his former self. Only the eyes had grown larger and softer, and their gaze now seemed turned within. They burned with a feverish mystic beauty.

Ruth fixed on him a look of melting tenderness and asked:

"Do you not long for the open fields, the sky and sea, my dear?"

He gazed at her hungrily.

"No. Sometimes I've felt a queer homesickness in these dying muscles that thirst for the open world, but I've no time to think of mountain or lake, or hear the call of field or sea---Ruth, I can only think of you! I have but one interest, but one desire of soul and body--that you may be happy. I would be free, not because I fear death or covet life"--his voice sank to a broken whisper--"but that I might crawl around the earth on my hands and knees and confess my shame and sorrow that I deserted you."

"Hush, hush, my love; I forgive you," she moaned.

"Yes, I know; but all time and eternity will be too short for my repentance."

The woman was sobbing bitterly.

"These prison bars," he went on with strange elation, "are nothing.

The old queer instinct of asceticism within me, that made a preacher of an Epicurean and an athlete, has come back to its kingship. Its sublime authority is now supreme. I despise life, and have learned to live. There is no task so hard but that the king within demands a harder. There can be no pain so fierce and cruel but that it calls my soul to laughter. As for Death--"

His voice sank to dreamy notes.

"She who comes at last with velvet feet and the tender touch of a pure woman's hand--her face is radiant, her voice low music. She will speak the end of strife and doubt, and loose these bars. With friendly smile she will show me the path among the stars, until I find the face of G.o.d. I'll tell Him I'm a son of His who lost the way on life's great plain, and that I am sorry for all the pain I've caused to those who loved me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.]

Ruth felt through the bars and grasped his hand, sobbing.

"Don't, don't, don't, Frank! Stop! I cannot endure it!"

The warden turned away to hide his face.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

SWIFT AND BEAUTIFUL FEET

For three months Ruth went back and forth from Sing Sing to Albany, battling with the Governor for Gordon's life and cheering the condemned man with her courage and love.

The fatal day of the execution had come, and she was to wage the last battle of her soul for the life of her love with the man who loved her.

It was a day of storm. The spring rains had been pouring in torrents for a week and the wind was now dashing against the windows blinding sheets of water.

A carriage stopped before the Governor's Mansion, and two women wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. The Governor was at his desk in his office.

There was the rustle of a woman's dress at his door. He looked and sprang to his feet, trembling.

He threw one hand to his forehead as though to clear his brain, and caught a chair with the other.

Advancing swiftly toward him, he saw the white vision of Ruth Spottswood the night of the ball when he had lost her. The same dress, the same rounded throat, only the bust a little fuller, and the same beautiful bare arms with the delicate wrists and tapering fingers. The great soulful eyes, with just a gleam of young sunshine in their depths, and the same flowers on her breast. She walked with lithe, quick grace, and now she was talking in the low sweet contralto music that had echoed in his soul through the years.

"Please, Governor," she was saying, as her hot hand held his, "save my father!"

The man's eyes were blinking, and he put one hand to his throat as though he were about to choke. He looked past the white figure of the girl and saw her mother kneeling in the corner of the room, the tears streaming down her face and her lips moving in prayer.

In quick tones he called:

"Ruth!"

She leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet face, dilated eyes and disheveled hair.

"You've won. I give it up."

Ruth pressed both hands to her breast and caught her breath to keep from screaming.