Chapter Twenty-four

The Ultimate Sacrifice

She stared at him, as the blow fell, and then her glance turned slowly to Caroline who had uttered a sharp cry and sunk into a chair.

“Help me, Ruth,” she implored pitifully.  “No other person in the world can help me but you!”

“Do you see that,” asked Ruth quietly of John Mark, “and still it doesn’t move you?”

“Not a hairbreadth, my dear.”

“But isn’t it absurd?  Suppose I have my freedom, and I tell the police that in this house a girl against her will—­”

“Tush, my dear!  You really do not know me at all.  Do you think they can reach me?  She may be a hundred miles away before you have spoken ten words to the authorities.”

“But I warn you that all your holds on her are broken.  She knows that you have no holds over her brother.  She knows that Ronicky Doone has broken them all—­that Jerry is free of you!”

“Ronicky Doone,” said Mark, his face turning gray, “is a talented man.  No doubt of it; his is a very peculiar and incisive talent, I admit.  But, though he has broken all the old holds, there are ways of finding new ones.  If you leave now, I can even promise you, my dear, that, before the next day dawns, the very soul of Caroline will be a pawn in my hands.  Do you doubt it?  Such an exquisitely tender, such a delicate soul as Caroline, can you doubt that I can form invisible bonds which will hold her even when she is a thousand miles away from me?  Tush, my dear; think again, and you will think better of my ability.”

“Suppose,” Ruth said, “I were to offer to stay?”

He bowed.  “You tempt me, with such overwhelming generosity, to become even more generous myself and set her free at once.  But, alas, I am essentially a practical man.  If you will stay with me, Ruth, if you marry me at once, why, then indeed this girl is as free as the wind.  Otherwise I should be a fool.  You see, my dear, I love you so that I must have you by fair means or foul, but I cannot put any chain upon you except your own word.  I confess it, you see, even before this poor girl, if she is capable of understanding, which I doubt.  But speak again—­do you make the offer?”

She hesitated, and he went on:  “Be careful.  I have had you once, and I have lost you, it seems.  If I have you again there is no power in you—­no power between earth and heaven to take you from me a second time.  Give yourself to me with a word, and I shall make you mine forever.  Then Caroline shall go free—­free as the wind—­to her lover, my dear, who is waiting.”

He made no step toward her, and he kept his voice smooth and clear.  Had he done otherwise he knew that she would have shrunk.  She looked to him, she looked to Caroline Smith.  The latter had suddenly raised her head and thrown out her hands, with an unutterable appeal in her eyes.  At that mute appeal Ruth Tolliver surrendered.