that it was love
bathed in pain.

A new sense of just how hideous the whole thing was made him suddenly
demand: "Can't you--_do_ anything about it? Isn't there any _way_?--any
way you can get a divorce?" he bluntly asked.

"Mrs. Williams does not believe in divorce," was the answer, spoken with
more bitterness than Deane had ever heard in any voice before.

Deane turned away with a little exclamation of rage, rage that one
person should have this clutch on the life of another, of two
others--and one of them Ruth--sickened with a sense of the waste and the
folly of it,--for what was _she_ getting out of it? he savagely put to
himself. How could one get anything from life simply by holding another
from it?

"Does she know anything about Ruth?" he asked with an abrupt turn to
Stuart.

"She has mentioned her name several times lately and looked at me in
doing it. She isn't one to speak directly of things," he added with a
more subtle bitterness than that of a moment before. They sat there for
a couple of minutes in silence--a helpless, miserable silence.

When, after that, Deane stepped out into the waiting-room he found Ruth
among those there; he only nodded to her and went back and told Stuart
that she was there. "But it's only three," said he helplessly, "and she
said she was coming at four."

"Well, I suppose she came earlier than she intended," Deane replied,
about as helplessly, and went over and stood looking out the window.
After a moment he turned. "Better get it over with, hadn't you! She's
got to be told," he said, a little less brusquely, as he saw the man
wince,--"better get it over with."

Stuart was silent, head down. After a moment he looked up at Deane. It
was a look one would turn quickly away from. Again Deane stood looking
from the window. He was considering something, considering a thing that
would be very hard to do. After a moment he again abruptly turned
around. "Well, shall I do it!" he asked quietly.

The man nodded in a wretched gratefulness that went to Deane's heart.

So he called Ruth in from the waiting-room. He always remembered just
how Ruth looked that day; she had on a blue suit and a hat with flowers
on it that was very becoming to her. She looked very girlish; he had a
sudden sense of all the years he had known her.

The smile with which she greeted Deane changed when she saw Stuart
sitting there; the instant's pleased surprise went to apprehension at
sight of his face. "Wh