"What shall I do, Jack?" I wailed. All my vaunted self-reliance was gone. I felt like the most helpless perfect clinging vine in the world.
"We're going straight to your home to see your husband," he said. "You will introduce me to him and then leave us. I shall explain everything to him."
"Oh, Jack," I said terrified, "he has such an uncertain temper, and, besides, he isn't at home. He was to take dinner at the Underwoods at 2 o'clock."
"Well, we must go there, then," returned Jack. "Put on your gloves, then the absence of the rings won't be noticed until I have a chance to explain about them."
I picked up the gloves and unfolded them. Something glittering rolled out of them and dropped into my lap.
"Oh, Jack, my rings!" I fairly shrieked. Then for the first time in my life I became hysterical, laughing and sobbing uncontrollably.
* * * * *
That night I told Dicky the whole story—not one word did I keep back from him—and when I came to the loss of my rings and the meeting with Harry Underwood, there developed a scene that I cannot even now bring myself to put down on paper. But at last Dicky managed to control himself enough to ask what I had told Harry Underwood.
"I told him that my rings had not been lost, that my gloves were too tight and that I had removed them to put on my gloves."
"Good!" Dicky's voice held a note of relenting. "That's one thing saved, any way. Wonder your conscience would let you tell that much of a lie."