In the moment of electrified silence that followed, Sylvia misinterpreted Austin's silence, just as he had failed to understand her tears. She came nearer to him, holding out her hands.
"Please don't be angry," she whispered; "I'll never give any of you anything again, if you don't want me to. I know you don't want—and you don't need—charity; but you did need and want—some one to help just a little—when things had been going badly with you for so long that it seemed as if they never could go right again. You'd lost your grip because there didn't seem to be anything to hang on to! It's meant new courage and hope and life to me to be able to stay here—I'd lost my grip, too. I don't think I could have held on much longer—to my reason even—if I hadn't had this respite. If I can accept all that from you, can't you accept the clear title to a few acres from me? Austin—don't stand there looking at me like that—tell me I haven't presumed too far."
"What made you think I was angry?" he said hoarsely. "Do men dare to be angry with angels sent from Heaven?" He took the little slip of paper which she still held in her extended hand. "I thought you had done something like this—that was why you made me burn the papers myself—in the name of my father—and of my children—God bless you." Without taking his eyes off her face, he drew a tiny box from his pocket. "Sylvia—would you take a present from me?"
"Why, yes. What—"
"It isn't really a present at all, of course, for it was bought with your money, and perhaps you won't like it, for I've noticed you never wear any jewelry. But I couldn't bear to come home without a single thing for you—and this represents—what you've been to me."
As he spoke, he slipped into her hand a delicate chain of gold, on which hung a tiny star; she turned it over two or three times without speaking, and her eyes filled with tears again. Then she said:
"It is a present, for this means you travelled third-class, and stayed at cheap hotels, and went without your lunches—or you couldn't have bought it. You had only enough money for the trip we originally planned, without those six weeks in Italy. I'll wear this piece of jewelry—and it will represent what you've been to me, in my mind. Will you put it on yourself?"
She held it towards him, bending forward, her head down. It seemed to Austin that her loveliness was like the fragrance of a flower. Involuntarily, the hands which clasped the little chain around her white throat, touching the warm, soft skin, fell to her shoulders, and drew her closer.
The swift and terrible change that went over Sylvia's face sent a thrust of horror through him. She shut her eyes, and shrank away, trembling all over, her face grown ashy white. Instantly he realized that the gesture must have replied to her some ghastly experience in the past; that perhaps she had more than once been tricked into an embrace by a gift; that a man's love had meant but one thing to her, and that she now thought herself face to face with that thing again, from one whom she had helped and trusted. For an instant the grief with which this realization filled him, the fresh compassion for all she had suffered, the renewed love for all her goodness, were too much for him. He tried to speak, to take away his hands, to leave her. He seemed to be powerless. Then, blessedly, the realization of what he should do came to him.
"Open your eyes, Sylvia," he commanded.