oved each other,
and she did not stop to realize that this was the first time they had
met in the presence of others since becoming plighted lovers. She
realized nothing except his presence--that alone filled her whole world
with joy and content. He came straight to meet her, holding out his
hands; but before he could cross the great room, or even had time to
speak, Philip Alston stepped forward and spoke suddenly in clear
tones:--

"Yes, see the wedding gift! The bridal pearls are here at last; all
ready for Christmas Eve."

Paul Colbert paused. He was an ardent and bold lover, but the words were
like a breath of frost on love's flowering. No ardor, no confidence, can
keep a sensitive man from feeling a chill when he sees the woman he
loves decked in the beautiful things which are beauty's birthright, and
realizes for the first time that he cannot give them to her. With the
painful shock which this feeling brought to the young doctor there was a
greater shock in the sudden thought of the possible source of the riches
which the pearls represented. A feeling of horror rushed over him, as if
he had seen that soft, white throat encircled by a serpent, and he
sprang forward to tear it off.

Ruth had turned her head to look at Philip Alston, with a start of
surprise and a little disquietude, but without fear or distrust. She
could not believe that he would wish her to marry William after he knew
that she loved Paul; such a thought never crossed her mind. Yet, as she
looked, a strange feeling of alarm which she did not comprehend swept
over her, filling her with formless terror. Some instinct made her
shrink, as if this wonderful string of pearls, which she had thought so
beautiful a moment before, had turned into a cruel chain and was binding
her fast. She did not know that many a weaker man has thus bound many a
stronger woman with chains of gold and ropes of pearls. But she felt it,
and her instinct was quicker than her lover's thought. Had her hands
been free she would have thrown the fetters from her, and finding
herself helpless, she turned to Paul Colbert for help.

"Take them off! Quick--quick! They are too heavy," she gasped.

It was Philip Alston who reached her first, and took the pearls from
her neck and the candles from her hands; but she did not look at him,
and went to her lover as if he had called her. Paul's arm going out to
meet her drew her to his side, and then, as the young couple thus stood
close t