"Where's the ring?" the telegraph operator motioned to me with his lips. His tired eyes expressed a mild interest. I saw Roger's lips purse; for a moment his eyes left Margarita's face and I knew that he had just remembered it. I looked down vaguely, and my eyes fell upon the worn, thin band on my little finger—my mother's mother's wedding-ring. In one of those lightning flashes of memory I saw myself, a lad again, starting for college, and my mother putting it on my finger.
"She was the best woman, I believe, that ever lived, Jerry—I took it when she died. I want you to wear it, and perhaps you will think—oh, my darling! I know it is hard to be a good man, but will you try?"
My dear, dear mother! I think I tried—I hope so.
I slipped it from my finger—I had taken it off sometimes, but never for so good a reason—and pressed it into Roger's hand. He accepted it as unconsciously as if it had come from heaven—and it was my ring that married Margarita.
