“I don’t want to interrupt you,” said Miss Thane, “but you’ll find yourself with the devil sooner than you think for if that wound of yours starts bleeding again.”
“Ah, let be!” Ludovic said, his right hand clenching on the coverlet.
Sir Tristram was looking at that hand. He bent, and grasped Ludovic’s wrist, and lifted it, staring at the bare fingers. “Show me your other hand!” he said harshly.
Ludovic’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. He wrenched his wrist out of Shield’s hold, and put back the bedclothes to show his left arm in a sling. The fingers were as bare as those of his right hand.
Sir Tristram raised his eyes to that haggard young face. “If you had it it would never leave your finger!” he said. “Ludovic, where is the ring?”
“Famous!” mocked Ludovic. “Brazen it out, Tristram! Where is the ring indeed? You do not know, of course!”
“What the devil do you mean by that?” demanded Shield, in a voice that made Eustacie jump.
Ludovic flung off Miss Thane’s restraining hand, and sat up as though moved by a spring. “You know what I mean!” he said, quick and panting. “You laid your plans very skilfully, my clever cousin, and you took care to ship me out of England before I’d time to think who, besides myself, could want the ring more than anything on earth! Does it grace your collection now? Tell me, does it give you satisfaction when you look at it?”
“If you were not a wounded man I’d give you the thrashing of your life, Ludovic!” said Shield, very white about the mouth. “I have stood veiled hints from Basil, but not even he dare say to my face what you have said!”
“Basil—Basil believed in me!” Ludovic gasped. “It was you—you!”