The bitterness of his tone was merged at last into a strange tenderness and hopelessness.
She did not look at him. She did not wish him to see the tears spring suddenly to her eyes. She brought her voice to a firm quietness. She thought of the woman, Mrs. Gladney, who was coming; of his child, whom he did not recognize. She looked down toward the abbey. The girl was walking there between old Mr. Margrave and Baron. She had once hated both the woman and the child. She knew that to be true to her blood she ought to hate them always, but there crept into her heart now a strange feeling of pity for both. Perhaps the new interest in her life was driving out hatred. There was something more. The envelope she had found that day on the moor was addressed to that woman's husband, from whom she had been separated—no one knew why—for years. What complication and fresh misery might be here?
"You may keep the ring," she said.
"Thank you," was his reply, and he put it on his finger, looking down at it with an enigmatical expression. "And is there nothing more?"
She willfully misconstrued his question. She took the torn pieces of envelope from her pocket and handed them to him. "These are yours," she said.
He raised his eyebrows. "Thank you again. But I do not see their value. One could almost think you were a detective, you are so armed."
"Who is he? What is he to you?" she asked.
"He is an unlucky man, like myself, and my best friend. He helped me out of battle, murder and sudden death more than once, and we shared the same blanket times without number."
"Where is he now?" she said in a whisper, not daring to look at him lest she should show how disturbed she was.
"He is in a hospital in New York."