When Adela rose from her knees she looked him gravely and earnestly in the face, and then left the chapel with him in silence. They went out into the calm autumn evening; the skies were naming with crimson and gold, for the sun was just sinking behind the line of forest that bounded the horizon, and the bell in the little village church began to ring for vespers.
"How solemn!" said Adela, pausing before the chapel. Suddenly she turned to Walter again: "From this moment we are friends for life, are we not?"
"Yes, Adela; at least I promise to be your friend for life," he replied.
She took from her finger a ring set with a sapphire. "Take this ring in remembrance of today," she said. "It was my mother's, and I have always worn it, first on my chain and then on my finger. Take it."
"But, Adela," Walter said, delighted, and yet hesitating to accept so strange a gift, "will it not be missed from your finger?"
"Who is there to miss it? No one cares enough for me to notice whether I wear it or not," she said, with some bitterness.
He took the ring, and as he did so detained her hand in his for some moments, as they walked down the steps and across the church-yard.
"I thank you, Adela; the ring will be most precious indeed to me," he said, in a low, earnest voice. "But I do not need it to make me remember this evening."
She smiled, and at the gate of the church-yard they took leave of each other. The chapel lay about half-way between Rollin and Eichhof, so that each could reach home before dark.
Adela felt very happy this evening, and, as there was no one to whom she could speak of her happiness, she carried a basket of sugar into the stable and fed her various black and brown pets.