'I am not likely to forget, God help me, that both my boys are gone, and now I have——'
'Only me, papa.'
'It is a source of supreme satisfaction that I am the means of restoring this to his family,' Goring added, judiciously, as he was on the point of saying 'sister,' and he placed it in her hand; but that hand seemed so slim and white and beautiful that he was tempted to do more, for he slipped the ring rather playfully and rather nervously on one of her fingers, saying, 'It is a world too wide.'
'Of course,' said Sir Ranald, 'it is a man's ring.
'But, see!' exclaimed Alison, as she pressed a spring, of the existence of which Goring had been until that moment ignorant, and the two clamshells unclosing showed a minutely and beautifully coloured little photo, no larger than a shilling, of her own charming face.
'Good heavens!' said Goring, with genuine surprise and pleasure, 'I was all unaware of this secret, though I have worn the ring for two years and more.'
'And all that time you have been wearing my ring, my hair, my likeness,' muttered Alison, in a low voice, while Sir Ranald was ringing the bell.
'Delicious fatality,' thought Goring, as he looked on the sweet flushed face that was upturned to his, and their eyes met in a mutual glance that expressed more than their lips dared tell already, and which neither ever forgot. Luckily at that moment the baronet, on hospitable thoughts intent, was ordering Archie to bring wine, mentioning a rare brand from the small store which yet remained of the wreck of better days—a store kept for visitors alone.
'My brothers died within a month of each other in India, Captain Goring,' said Alison. 'Poor mamma never got over the double shock, and—and—we have never been at Essilmont since.'
'Could not your presence, your existence, console her?' asked Goring.