The Rose in the Ring

by George Barr McCutcheon

No one thought to oppose him as he passed hastily under the flap. He was back in a moment, carrying his rain-soaked waistcoat. With nervous fingers he drew a heavy pin from the mouth of the inside pocket, and extracted a long leather purse therefrom. It was tied up with a heavy piece of string.

"Do you mean to tell me that you've got five hundred dollars in there?" demanded Braddock incredulously.

David felt without seeing the look that went through the crowd. He knew, by some strange mental process, that they were condemning him, that they were drawing away from him. He was bewildered. Then suddenly he understood. It came like a blow. Something rushed up into his throat and choked him.

They took this money to be the profits of murder! The spoils of a dreadful sin!

Speechless, he turned to Mrs. Braddock. There was no mistaking the look of pain and distress in her dark eyes. There were doubt and wonder there, too. It seemed to him that she shrank back a step; although, as a matter of fact, she remained as motionless as a statue. Christine was glowing upon him in grateful amazement, unutterable relief in her gaze. To her, it meant only that he was rich and could save himself. It did not occur to her that he had come by the riches dishonestly, nor was she at once conscious of a feeling that her father would do wrong to accept the tribute. It was not until later that she felt the shock of revulsion.

"It is my money!" cried David, speaking to Mrs. Braddock. "Every cent of it! I—I know what you are thinking. You think I stole it." His eyes were flashing and his chin was held high now. "I'll kill any one who says I steal. I'd sooner commit murder a thousand times than to steal."

"How did you—come by all that money?" asked Mrs. Braddock, more than half convinced by his fervor.

"That's what I'd like to know," added her husband. "Here! Lemme take that pocket-book."

David jerked his hand loose and abruptly thrust the purse into the hand of the astonished Mrs. Braddock.

"Look at it," he cried passionately. "Open the purse. It's still in the sealed envelope, just as my father left it when he went off to the war the second time—after he was wounded. He left it with my mother for me. No one has ever opened the package. It was in my mother's trunk until she died. She wouldn't put it in a bank. My uncle Frank never knew that she had it; he doesn't know that I have it now. But it is mine. My father gave it to me when I was six years old. See what it says on the envelope. It's his own writing. 'For my son David. To be used in the acquiring of an education if I should fall in this dear, beloved cause, which now seems lost. God defend us all!' See! 'Arthur Brodalbin Jenison.' My father's signature. Here is the seal of his ring. It is my money."