not know where to turn. She could not
grapple with the racing thoughts that went hurtling through her mind.

This girl had loved Rafe Gadbeau. She was half crazed with her love
and her grief. And she was determined to protect his name from the
dark blot of murder. With the uncanny insight that is sometimes given
to those beside themselves with some great grief or strain, the girl
had seen Ruth's terrible secret bare in its hiding place and had
plucked it out before Ruth's very eyes.

The awful, the unbelievable thing had happened, thought Ruth. She had
broken the seal of the confessional! She had been entrusted with the
most terrible secret that a man could have to tell, under the most
awful bond that God could put upon a secret. And the secret had
escaped her!

She had said no word at all. But, just as surely as if she had
repeated the cry of the dying man in the night, Ruth knew that the
other girl had taken her secret from her.

And with that same uncanny insight, too, the girl had looked into the
future and had shown Ruth what a burden the secret was to be to her.
Nay, what a burden it was already becoming. For already she was afraid
to speak to any one, afraid to go near any person that she had ever
known.

And that girl had stripped bare another of Ruth's secrets, one that
had been hidden even from herself. She had said:

"Remember-- You love Jeffrey Whiting."

In ways, she had always loved him. But she now realised that she had
never known what love was. Now she knew. She had seen it flame up in
the eyes of the half mad French girl, ready to clutch and tear for the
dead name of the man whom she had loved. Now Ruth knew what it was,
and it came burning up in her heart to protect the dear name of her
own beloved one, her man. Already men were putting the brand of Cain
upon him! Already the word was running from mouth to mouth over the
hills-- The word of blood! And with it ran the name of her love!
Jeffrey, the boy she had loved since always, the man she would love
forever!

He would hear it from other mouths. But, oh! the cruel, unbearable
taunt was that only two days ago he had heard it first from her own
lips! Why? Why? How? How had she ever said such a thing? Ever thought
of such a thing?

But she could not speak as the French girl had spoken for her man. She
could not swear the mouths to silence. She could not cry out the
bursting, torturing truth that alone would close those mouths. No, not
even