She threw herself between the two, arms outstretched.
"Ventnor!" Drake caught his arms, held them tight; "that's not the way to save her!" Ventnor stood between us, quivering, half sobbing.

Never until then had I realized how great, how absorbing was that love of his for Ruth.

And the woman saw it, too, even though dimly; envisioned it humanly.

For, under the shock of human passion, that which I thought then as utterly unknown to her as her cold serenity was to us, the sleeping soul--I use the popular word for those emotional complexes that are peculiar to mankind--stirred, awakened.
Wrath fled from her knitted brows; her eyes dropping to the girl, lost their dreadfulness; softened.

She turned them upon Ventnor, they brooded upon him; within their depths a half-troubled interest, a questioning.
A smile dawned upon the exquisite face, humanizing it, transfiguring it, touching with tenderness the sweet and sleeping mouth--as a hovering dream the lips of the slumbering maid.
And on the face of Ruth, as upon a mirror, I watched that same slow, understanding tenderness reflected! "Come," said Norhala, and led the way through the sparkling curtains.
As she passed, an arm around Ruth's neck, I saw the marks of Ventnor's fingers upon her white shoulder, staining its purity, marring it like a blasphemy.
For an instant I hung behind, watching their figures grow misty within the shining shadows; then followed hastily.