"That—that letter and the ring?" he says, inquiringly.
She raises her clear eyes to his.
"Do you want me to tell you about them?" she says, in a low voice, as if he had the right to search her soul, and she were wishing that he should do so.
"No, no," he rejoins.
"But I will. He—he who wrote the letter and gave me the ring——."
His face grows cloudier.
"No, no tell me just this. He is nothing to you, you never cared——."
"Never," she says simply. "He has gone—I will tell you."
He presses her face to his to silence her, and a wave of remorse, of self-reproach, sweeps over him.