"Let me see," he said.
He took the ring, looked at it, and the smile fled from his face, which suddenly went pale. It was the ring he had given Leslie! He stood, dumb with amazement.
"Well?" she said, linking her arm in his, and so intent on the ring that she did not notice his pallor and constraint.
"Yes," he said, and his voice rang out with a strange doubt and trouble—"yes, it is my ring!"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"POOR GIRL!"
Ralph Duncombe stood looking at the ring as a man looks upon some trinket he has happened on that belonged to some dearly loved friend long since dead. The ring he had given to Leslie! Back in a flash came the memory of that morning he had given it to her. The sea, the beach, the lovely face floated before his eyes and made him giddy. He had just asked this sweet, innocent girl to be his wife; he had no right, no wish to think of Leslie as a lover, and yet—ah, well, in the heart, as in heaven, there are many manoeuvres, and for the moment the old love filled the biggest place in Ralph Duncombe's heart.
"What is the matter?" asked Lucy, with faint wonder at his silence and stillness. "Is it so very precious a ring? Let me look at it. Would you have been very sorry if you had lost it?"
"Very," he said, scarcely knowing what he said.