Even when her father had dropped
asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst
of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and
another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she
possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold.
The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back to
Cairnforth, when her persistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses
had almost produced a breach between them--at least the nearest
approach to a quarrel they had ever known. She, seeing how deeply she
had wounded him, had accepted this ring as a pledge of amity, and had
worn it ever since--by his earnest request--until it had become as
familiar to her finger as the one beside it. But now she kept looking
at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled air.
"I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairnforth--a rude
one, if you and I were not such old friends that we do not mind any
thing we say to one another."
"Say on."
"Is this ring of mine very valuable?"
"Rather so."
"Worth how much?"
"You certainly are rude, Helen," replied the earl, with a smile.
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