The Salt Of The Earth by Fred M. White

Resolutely, Adela put aside all sense of conventionality. It fell from her shoulders like a disused garment. She was just a woman inspired with the hope of saving this man from what she believed to be dire and imminent peril. She had already gone a long way to rescue him, and had done so at great trouble and risk to herself, for she had absolutely nothing to gain. But never had she been more thoroughly in earnest before.

No longer did she blind herself to the truth. She knew she was not animated by sentiments of ordinary friendship, but was actuated by deep and genuine love for Douglas Denne. Curiously, too, now she seemed to have loved him from the first. He had, indeed, become more or less reconciled to the fact that she was the promised wife of Mark Callader, but she knew now that nothing would induce her to keep her word. What were Denne's feelings to her she knew not, for of actual direct avowal of anything approaching to love, not a syllable had crossed his lips. But if she lost Callader without winning Denne, that did not concern her. She would work for her daily bread rather than marry Mark.