"That admits of no answer," says Luttrell, with low but passionate bitterness; and, taking up the ring, he flings it lightly into the very heart of the glowing fire.
With a sudden loss of self-restraint Molly makes a movement forward as though to prevent him; but too late,—already the greedy flames have closed upon it.
Not all the agitation, not all his angry words of the night before, have affected her so keenly as this last act. She bursts into a very storm of tears.
"Oh! what have you done?" cries she. "You have destroyed it; you have burned it,—my pretty ring!"
She clasps her hands together, and gazes with straining eyes into the cruel fire. Something within her heart feels broken. Surely some string has snapped. The ring, in spite of all, was a last link between them; and now, too, it has gone.
"Molly!" says he, taking a step toward her, and holding out his hands, softened, vanquished by her tears, ready to throw himself once more an abject slave at her feet.
"Do not speak to me," returns she, still sobbing bitterly. "Have you not done enough? I wish you would leave me to myself. Go away. There is nothing more that you can do."
Feeling abashed, he scarcely knows why, he silently quits the room.
Then down upon her knees before the fire falls Molly, and with the poker strives with all her might to discover some traces of her lost treasure. So diligent is her search that after a little while the ring, blackened, disfigured, altered almost beyond recognition, lies within her hand. Still it is her ring, however changed, and some small ray of comfort gladdens her heart.
She is still, however, weeping bitterly, and examining sadly the precious relic she has rescued from utter oblivion, and from which the diamond, soiled, but still brilliant, has fallen into her palm, when Philip enters.