On the threshold of the living room she paused.  Larry was pacing the floor nervously, his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the flickering gas.  Seeing her he made a swift stride in her direction, took both her hands in his.

“Ruth, why did you come?” There was an odd tension in his voice.

“You called me, didn’t you?  I thought you did.”  Her eyes were wondering.  “I heard you say ‘Ruth’ as plain as anything.”

He shook his head.

“No, I didn’t call you out loud.  Maybe I did with my heart though.  I wanted you so.”

He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them.

“Ruth, I’ve got to marry you.  I can’t go on like this.  I’ve tried to fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself as Uncle Phil wanted me to.  But I can’t go on.  I’m done.”

He flung himself into a chair.  His head went down on the table.  The clock ticked quietly on the mantel.  What was Death upstairs to Time?  What were Youth and Love and Grief down here?  These things were merely eddies in the great tide of Eternity.

For a moment Ruth stood very still.  Then she went over and laid a hand on the bowed head, the hand that wore the wedding ring.

“Larry, Larry dear,” she said softly.  “Don’t give up like that.  It breaks my heart.”  There was a faint tremor in her voice, a hint of tears not far off.

He lifted his head, the strain of his long self mastering wearing thin almost to the breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy of the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love for the girl at his side who stood so close he could feel her breathing, got the faint violet fragrance of her.  And yet he must not so much as touch her hand.

The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable strokes.  Ruth and Larry and the clock seemed the only living things in the quiet house.  Larry brushed his hand over his eyes, got to his feet.

“Ruth, will you marry me?”

“Yes, Larry.”

The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back a little to realities.

“Wait, Ruth.  Don’t agree too soon.  Do you realize what it means to marry me?  You may be married already.  Your husband may return and find you living—­illegally—­with me.”

“I know,” said Ruth steadily.  “There must be something wrong with me, Larry.  I can’t seem to care.  I can’t seem to make myself feel as if I belonged to any one else except to you.  I don’t think I do belong to any one else.  I was born over in the wreck.  I was born yours.  You saved me.  I would have died if you hadn’t gotten me out from under the beams and worked over and brought me back to life when everybody else gave me up as dead.  I wouldn’t have been alive for my husband if you hadn’t saved me.  I am yours, Larry.  If you want me to marry you I will.  If you want me—­any way—­I am yours.  I love you.”

“Ruth!”

Larry drew her into his arms and kissed her—­the first time he had ever kissed any girl in his life except his sister.  She lay in his arms, her fragrant pale gold hair brushing his cheek.  He kissed her over and over passionately, almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly unpent.  Then he was Larry Holiday again.  He pushed her gently from him, remorse in his gray eyes.