The doctor took the ring in his hand and examined it curiously.
“There is a quirk in this,” he said at last, “that I don’t like. Take back your ring, lassie. Mr. Dishart, give Nanny your arm, and I’ll carry her box to the machine.”
Now all this time Gavin had been in the dire distress of a man possessed of two minds, of which one said, “This is a true woman,” and the other, “Remember the seventeenth of October.” They were at war within him, and he knew that he must take a side, yet no sooner had he cast one out than he invited it back. He did not answer the doctor.
“Unless,” McQueen said, nettled by his hesitation, “you trust this woman’s word.”
Gavin tried honestly to weigh those two minds against each other, but could not prevent impulse jumping into one of the scales.
“You do trust me,” the Egyptian said, with wet eyes; and now that he looked on her again—
“Yes,” he said firmly, “I trust you,” and the words that had been so difficult to say were the right words. He had no more doubt of it.
“Just think a moment first,” the doctor warned him. “I decline to have anything to do with this matter. You will go to the Kaims for the siller?”
“If it is necessary,” said Gavin.
“It is necessary,” the Egyptian said.