"Is this yours?" he asks, as she comes up to him. "Did you come to look for it?"
"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows some hesitation about giving it.
"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What induced you to give it such a place?"
"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."
"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.
"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily be obliterated and forgotten."
Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched, watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed, spiritless, without power to shed them.
Once more she makes a movement to leave him.
"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."
She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks. Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its vehemence.