to Ruth. She had hurried home to execute the bidding of John Mark. She had left it, obeying the bidding of Ronicky Doone.
They scurried to the front door. As they opened it the sharp gust of night air blew in on them, and they heard the sound of a man running up the steps. In a moment the dim hall light showed on the slender form and the pale face of John Mark standing before them.
Caroline felt the start of Ruth Tolliver. For her part she was on the verge of collapse, but a strong pressure from the hand of her companion told her that she had an ally in the time of need.
“Tut tut!” Mark was saying, “what’s this? How did Caroline get out of her room—and with you, Ruth?”
“It’s idiotic to keep her locked up there all day and all night, in weather like this,” said Ruth, with a perfect calm that restored Caroline’s courage almost to the normal. “When I talked to her this evening I made up my mind that I’d take her out for a walk.”
“Well,” replied John Mark, “that might not be so bad. Let’s step inside and talk it over for a moment.”
They retreated, and he entered and clicked the door behind him. “The main question is, where do you intend to walk?”
“Just in the street below the house.”
“Which might not lead you across to the house on the other side?”
“Certainly not! I shall be with her.”
“But suppose both of you go into that house, and I lose two birds instead of one? What of that, my clever Ruth?”
She knew at once, by something in his voice rather than his words, that he had managed to learn the tenor of the talk in Caroline’s room. She asked bluntly: “What are you guessing at?”
“Nothing. I only speak of what I know. No single pair of ears is enough for a busy man. I have to hire help, and I get it. Very effective help, too, don’t you agree?”
“Eavesdropping!” exclaimed Ruth bitterly. “Well—it’s true, John Mark. You sent me to steal her from her lover, and I’ve tried to steal her for him in the end. Do you know why? Because she was able to show me what a happy love might mean to a woman. She showed me that, and she showed me how much courage love had given her. So I began to guess a good many things, and, among the rest, I came to the conclusion that I could never truly love you, John Mark.
“I’ve spoken quickly,” she went on at last. “It isn’t that I have feared you all the time—I haven’t been playing a part, John, on my word. Only —tonight I learned something new. Do you see?”
“Heaven be praised,” said John Mark, “that we all have the power of learning new things, now and again. I congratulate you. Am I to suppose that Caroline was your teacher?”
He turned from her and faced Caroline Smith, and, though he smiled on her, there was a quality in the smile that shriveled her very soul with fear. No matter what he might say or do this evening to establish himself in the better graces of the girl he was losing, his malice was not dead. That she knew.
“She was my teacher,” answered Ruth steadily, “because she showed me, John, what a marvelous thing it is to be free. You understand that all the years I have been with you I have never been free?”
“Not free?” he asked, the first touch of emotion showing in his voice. “Not free, my dear? Was there ever the least wish of yours since you were a child that I did not gratify? Not one, Ruth; not one, surely, of which I am conscious!”
“Because I had no wishes,” she answered slowly, “that were not suggested by something that you liked or disliked. You were the starting point of all that I desired. I was almost afraid to think until I became sure that you approved of my thinking.”
“That was long ago,” he said gravely. “Since those old days I see you have changed greatly.”
“Because of the education you gave me,” she answered.
“Yes, yes, that was the great mistake. I begin to see. Heaven, one might say, gave you to me. I felt that I must improve on the gift of Heaven before I accepted you. There was my fault. For that I must pay the great penalty. Kismet! And now, what is it you wish?”
“To leave at once.”
“A little harsh, but necessary, if you will it. There is the door, free to you. The change of identity of which I spoke to you is easily arranged. I have only to take you to the bank and that is settled. Is there anything else?”
“Only one thing—and that is not much.”
“Very good.”
“You have given so much,” she ran on eagerly, “that you will give one thing more—out of the goodness of that really big heart of yours, John, dear!”
He winced under that pleasantly tender word.
And she said: “I want to take Caroline with me—to freedom and the man she loves. That is really all!”
The lean fingers of John Mark drummed on the back of the chair, while he smiled down on her, an inexplicable expression on his face.
“Only that?” he asked. “My dear, how strange you women really are! After all these years of study I should have thought that you would, at least, have partially comprehended me. I see that is not to be. But try to understand that I divide with a nice distinction the affairs of sentiment and the affairs of business. There is only one element in my world of sentiment—that is you. Therefore, ask what you want and take it for yourself; but for Caroline, that is an entirely different matter. No, Ruth, you may take what you will for yourself, but for her, for any other living soul, not a penny, not a cent will I give. Can you comprehend it? Is it clear? As for giving her freedom, nothing under Heaven could persuade me to it!”
24. THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
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
