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.