He bent his head to search her eyes the better.

Down in their depths, as one sees the bottom of a clear pool he read the truth, and with it came a reaction that sent the hot blood rushing through his veins.
"Sorry for you, my darling!" he burst out joyously--"I who love you like my own soul! Oh, Ruth!--Ruth!--my beloved!" He had her in his arms now, her cheek to his, her yielding body held close.
Then their lips met.
The Scribe lays down his pen.

This be holy ground on which we tread.

All she has she has given him: all the fantasies of her childhood, all the dreams of her girlhood, all her trust, her loyalty--her reverence--all to the very last pulsation of her being.
And this girl he holds in his arms! So pliant, so yielding, so pure and undefiled! And the silken sheen and intoxicating perfume of her hair, and the trembling lashes shading the eager, longing, soul-hungry eyes; and the way the little pink ears nestle; and the fair, white, dovelike throat, with its ripple of lace.

And then the dear arms about his neck and the soft clinging fingers that are intertwined with his own! And more wonderful still, the perfect unison, the oneness, the sameness; no jar, no discordant note; mind, soul, desire--a harmony.
The wise men say there are no parallels in nature; that no one thing in the wide universe exactly mates and matches any other one thing; that each cloud has differed from every other cloud-form in every hour of the day and night, to-day, yesterday and so on back through the forgotten centuries; that no two leaves in form, color, or texture, lift the same faces to the sun on any of the million trees; that no wave on any beach curves and falls as any wave has curved and fallen before--not since the planet cooled.