Her husband's influence would be supreme. A tender, gentle creature, she
would be easily influenced through her affections. The young doctor
might keep silence, seeing her love for himself and respecting her
regard for her foster-father; but he was not the man to hide what he
really thought and felt, and she must divine the truth before long.
Philip Alston had no hope of changing Paul Colbert's opinion of himself;
he knew the world and mankind too well to think for a moment that any
man might hope to live down such charges as those which had been brought
against himself. Ruth must know sooner or later, and, knowing, would she
still love him? There came now a sort of piteous appeal in the touch of
his unsteady hand on her hair. The slightest suspicion must blast the
exquisite flower of her tender love. With his quick, full appreciation
of everything truly noble he had often noted the firm principles, which
lay under her sweet gentleness like fine white marble under soft green
moss. He did not know that this very trait for which he had loved her,
and which now made him afraid, had already been tested again and again;
and that her love for him and trust in him, had stood against every
attack as firmly as great rocks stand against shallow waves.
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