eyes fixed upon the
spot where she last has seen him, and sits motionless, with her
fingers twisted loosely in her lap; she is so quiet that only the red
gleam from the world without betrays the fact of her presence.

Once her lips part, and from them slowly, ecstatically, come the
words, "His wife." Evidently her whole mind is filled with this one
thought alone. She thinks of him, and him only,--of him who has so
cruelly wronged her, yet who, in his own way, has loved her, too.

The moments fly, and night comes on apace, clothed in her "golden
dress, on which so many stars like gems are strewed;" yet still she
sits before the window silently. She is languid, yet happy,--weak and
spent by the excitement of the past hour, yet strangely full of peace.
Now and again she presses her hand with a gesture that is almost
convulsive to her side; yet whatever pain she feels there is
insufficient to drown the great gladness that is overfilling her.

To-morrow,--nay, even now, it is to-day,--and it is bringing her
renewed hope, fresh life, restored honor! He will be hers forever! No
other woman will have the right to claim him. Whatever she may have to
undergo at his hands, at least he will be her own. And he has loved
her as he never loved another. Oh, what unspeakable bliss lies in this
certainty! In another land, too, all will be unknown. A new life may
be begun in which the old may be swallowed up and forgotten. There
must be hope in the good future.

"When we slip a little
Out of the way of virtue, are we lost?
Is there no medicine called sweet mercy?"

Only this morning she had deemed herself miserable beyond her fellows;
now, who can compete with her in utter content? In a few short hours
she will be his wife! Oh that her father could but----

Her father! Now, all at once, it rushes back upon her; she is a little
dazed, a good deal unsettled, but surely some one had said that
her--her father--was--dead!

The lamps in the street die out. The sickly winter dawn comes over the
great city. The hush and calm still linger; only now and then a dark
phantom form issues from a silent gateway, and hurries along the
pavement, as though fearful of the growing light.

Ruth has sunk upon her knees, and is doing fierce battle with the
remorse that has come to kill her new-born happiness. There is a
terrible pain at her heart, even apart from the mental anguish that is
tearing it. Her slight frame trembles beneath t