'Are you Mr. Raban?' repeated Rhoda, looking intently into his face. 'I should have known you if it had not been so dark.' And she instinctively put up her hand and clasped something hanging round her neck.
The young man was moved.
'I ought indeed to remember you,' he said, with some emotion.
And as he spoke, he saw a diamond flash in the firelight. This, then, was the child who had wandered down that terrible night, to whom he had given his poor wife's diamond cross.
Rhoda saw with some alarm that his eyes were fixed upon the cross.
'I sometimes think I ought to send this back to you,' she faltered on, blushing faintly, and still holding it tightly clasped in her hand.
'Keep it,' said Raban, gravely; 'no one has more right to it than you.' Then they were all silent.
Dolly wondered why Rhoda had a right to the cross, but she did not ask.
Raban turned still more hard and more sad as the old memories assailed him suddenly from every side. Here was the past living over again. Though he might have softened to Lady Sarah, he now hardened to himself; and, as it often happens, the self-inflicted pain he felt seemed reflected in his manner towards the girls.
'I know you both now,' he said, gravely, standing up. 'Good-night; will you say good-by to your aunt for me?'