Margaret blushed. She could not have denied, if closely pressed, that some little tinge of the Eastern superstition had entered into this sacred ring, and lay there, like the fire in the opal. She could not have denied, that, when she drew it on every morning, she noted with satisfaction that its blue was as clear and bright as ever.
“How is it that this ring is still here?” asked Maria. “Is it possible that he retains gifts of yours? Yet, I think, if he did not, this ring would not be on your finger.”
“He does keep whatever I gave him. Thank God! he keeps them. This is one of my greatest comforts: it is the only way I have left of speaking to him. But if it were not so, this ring would still be where it is. I would not give it up. I am not altered. I am not angry with him. His love is as precious to me as it ever was, and I will not give up the tokens of it. Why, Maria, you surely cannot suppose that these things have any other value or use but as given by him! You cannot suppose that I dread the imputation of keeping them for their own sakes!”
“No: but—”
“But what?”
“Is any proof of his former regard of value now? That is the question. It has only very lately become a question with me. I have only lately learned to think him in fault. I excused him before... I excused him as long as I could.”
“You will unlearn your present opinion of him. Yes; everything that was ever valuable from him is more precious than ever now,—now that he is under a spell, and cannot speak his soul. If it were, as you think, if he loved me no longer, they would be still more precious, as a relic of the dead. But it is not so.”
“If faith can remove mountains, we may have to rejoice for you still, Margaret; for there can be no mass of calumnies between you and him which you have not faith enough to overthrow.”
“Thank you for that. It is the best word of comfort that has come to me from without for many a day. Now there is one thing more in which you can perhaps help me. I have heard nothing about him for so long! You see Mr Rowland sometimes (I know he feels a great friendship for you); and you meet the younger children. Do you hear nothing whatever about him?”
“Nothing: nor do they. Mr Rowland told me, a fortnight ago, that Mrs Rowland and he are seriously uneasy at obtaining no answers to their repeated letters to Mr Enderby. Mrs Rowland is more disturbed, I believe, than she chooses to show. She must feel herself responsible. She has tried various means of accounting for his silence, all the autumn. Now she gives that up, and is silent in her turn. If it were not for the impossibility of leaving home at such a time as this, Mr Rowland would go to London to satisfy himself. Margaret, I believe you are the only person who has smiled at this.”