For three months Ruth went back and forth from Sing Sing to Albany, battling with the Governor for Gordon’s life and cheering the condemned man with her courage and love.

The fatal day of the execution had come, and she was to wage the last battle of her soul for the life of her love with the man who loved her.

It was a day of storm. The spring rains had been pouring in torrents for a week and the wind was now dashing against the windows blinding sheets of water.

A carriage stopped before the Governor’s Mansion, and two women wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. The Governor was at his desk in his office.

There was the rustle of a woman’s dress at his door. He looked and sprang to his feet, trembling.

He threw one hand to his forehead as though to clear his brain, and caught a chair with the other.

Advancing swiftly toward him, he saw the white vision of Ruth Spottswood the night of the ball when he had lost her. The same dress, the same rounded throat, only the bust a little fuller, and the same beautiful bare arms with the delicate wrists and tapering fingers. The great soulful eyes, with just a gleam of young sunshine in their depths, and the same flowers on her breast. She walked with lithe, quick grace, and now she was talking in the low sweet contralto music that had echoed in his soul through the years.

“Please, Governor,” she was saying, as her hot hand held his, “save my father!”

The man’s eyes were blinking, and he put one hand to his throat as though he were about to choke. He looked past the white figure of the girl and saw her mother kneeling in the corner of the room, the tears streaming down her face and her lips moving in prayer.

In quick tones he called:

“Ruth!”

She leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet face, dilated eyes and disheveled hair.

“You’ve won. I give it up.”

Ruth pressed both hands to her breast and caught her breath to keep from screaming.

He pressed the button on his desk. The clerk appeared.

“Write out a full pardon for Frank Gordon, and call the warden of Sing Sing!”

Ruth dropped to her knees, crying:

“O Lord God, unto thee I give praise!”

In a moment the clerk hurried back to the Governor’s side and in startling tones whispered:

“The wires are down, sir. I can’t get the warden.”

The Governor snatched his watch from his pocket.

“There is no train for two hours. Order me a special!”

The despatcher flashed his command for a clear track as far as the wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with its single coach dashed across the bridge and plunged down the grade toward Sing Sing, roaring, hissing, screaming its warnings above the splash and howl of the storm.

The Governor sat silent with his head resting on his hand, shading his eyes.

Ruth, still and pale, gazed out the car window, and, shivering, closed her eyes now and then over the vision of a cold dead face she feared to see at the journey’s end.

They had made fifty miles in fifty minutes, and not a word had been spoken.

The Governor looked at his watch and leaned over:

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