"The dreadful diamond?" repeated Meg.
"It was always there; and sometimes it grew big, big, like a shining mountain, and put itself here." The spectral hand placed itself on the tiny chest. "It was heavy and cold—it pressed me down."
"It was a bad dream, my pet; not reality," said Meg soothingly.
"I saw it always, shining red, blue, and green. It shone in the dark as in the light, and sometimes it was like a great bright eye looking at me—always looking at me. It moved when I moved, and seemed to say, 'You nearly had Meg turned away like a thief.'"
"No, no; it was not you, it was I—I who did it all of my own free will," cried Meg, kissing the cold face that had become the emblem round which gathered her tenderest emotions.
"But it won't come again, because you have kissed me. The kiss that is better than the diamond," said Elsie with a vague relief in her panting voice.
"It will never come again," repeated Meg, trying to still her sobs.
Elsie lay back apparently at peace. Suddenly she turned, and there was a flicker of the old trouble in her eyes.
"Do you think God, too, forgives me?"