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It was two hours later when Molly Daventry went slowly upstairs to her room and shut the door. Jimmy Lethbridge had just gone; she had just kissed him. And the echo of his last whispered words—“My dear! my very dear girl!”—was still sounding in her ears.
For a while she stood by the fireplace smiling a little sadly. Then she crossed the room and switched on a special light. It was so placed that it shone directly on the photograph of an officer in the full dress of the 9th Hussars. And at length she knelt down in front of the table on which the photograph stood, so that the light fell on her own face also—glinting through the red-gold of her hair, glistening in the mistiness of her eyes. For maybe five minutes she knelt there, till it seemed to her as if a smile twitched round the lips of the officer—a human smile, an understanding smile.
“Oh, Peter!” she whispered, “he was your pal. Forgive me, my love—forgive me. He’s been such a dear.”
And once again the photograph seemed to smile at her tenderly.
“It’s only you, Peter, till Journey’s End—but I must give him the next best, mustn’t I? It’s only fair, isn’t it?—and you hated unfairness. But, dear God! it’s hard.”
Slowly she stretched out her left hand, so that the signet ring touched the big silver frame.
“Your ring, Peter,” she whispered, “your dear ring.”
And with a sudden little choking gasp she raised it to her lips.