The next express carried her to him with the copy of the Governor's order in her bosom.
The warden smiled and congratulated her. She had long before won his heart, and there was no favour within the limits of law that he had not granted to the man she loved.
Ruth looked at Gordon tenderly through the barred opening of his cell.
Her heart ached as she saw the ashen pallor of his face and the skin beginning to draw tight and slick across the protruding cheek-bones of his once magnificent face. Three years of prison had bent his shoulders and reduced his giant frame to a mere shadow of his former self. Only the eyes had grown larger and softer, and their gaze now seemed turned within. They burned with a feverish mystic beauty.
Ruth fixed on him a look of melting tenderness and asked:
"Do you not long for the open fields, the sky and sea, my dear?"
He gazed at her hungrily.
"No. Sometimes I've felt a queer homesickness in these dying muscles that thirst for the open world, but I've no time to think of mountain or lake, or hear the call of field or sea Ruth, I can only think of you! I have but one interest, but one desire of soul and body—that you may be happy. I would be free, not because I fear death or covet life"—his voice sank to a broken whisper—"but
