“You don’t mean this is all you are going to give me?”
“It is all I have: and I believe there is not another shilling in the house. I told you we have no money.”
“And you?” said he, turning to Maria.
“I have not my purse about me; and if I had there is nothing in it worth your taking. I assure you I have not got my purse. I am only a visitor here for this one night—and an odd night it is to have chosen, as it turns out.”
“Give me your watches.”
“I have no watch. I have not had a watch these five years,” said Maria.
“I have no watch,” said Margaret. “I sold mine a month ago. I told you we were very poor.”
The man muttered something about the plague of gentlefolks being so poor, and about wondering that gentlefolks were not ashamed of being so poor. “You have got something, however,” he continued, fixing his eye on the ring on Margaret’s finger. “Give me that ring. Give it me, or else I’ll take it.”
Margaret’s heart sank with a self-reproach worse than her grief, when she remembered how easily she might have saved this ring—how easily she might have thrust it under the fender, or dropped it into her shoe, into her hair, anywhere, while the intruder was gone to the room door to his companions. She felt that she could never forgive herself for this neglect of the most precious thing she had in the world—of that which most belonged to Philip.
“She cannot part with that ring,” said Maria. “Look! you may see she had rather part with any money she is ever likely to have than with that ring.”