She broke the seal and held the written page to the moonlight. As she read, a soft mellow note arose. It was Hobhouse’s violoncello, playing an aria of Rossini’s—a haunting melody that matched the night. The notes were still throbbing when her eyes lifted.
Gordon had taken a golden guinea from his pocket; he leaned forward and laid it on the letter’s waxen seal. It fitted the impression.
“It was a gift,” he said. “It is the one you gave me that day at the book-shop.”
She felt a sudden tremor of heart—or of nerves.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, thrilled for a brief moment; “and you kept it?”
At that instant a figure approached them across the terrace, doffing his cap awkwardly. It was the under-gardener, bringing a trinket he had found that afternoon among the lily-bulbs.
Gordon looked at the plain gold circlet he handed him. He turned to Annabel with a strange expression as the man disappeared.
“It is my mother’s wedding-ring,” he said in a low voice. “It was lost when I was a child.”
“How very odd,” she commented, “to find it—to-day!”
The music had ceased, and Lady Melbourne and her tonsured attendants were coming toward them.