“I won’t touch it!” Iris declared indignantly.
“But it must belong to one of you,” Doris insisted. “What shall we do with it?”
Azalea was already walking rapidly toward the house. Iris, as pale as a ghost and looking as though she were about to cry, likewise turned away.
“I don’t care what you do with it,” she said. “I’ll never touch it as long as I live!”
Doris and Kitty, left in possession of the ring, stared at it rather blankly.
“Well, of all things!” Kitty exclaimed. “Do you think they’ll change their minds?”
“I’m afraid not. This note and the ring have opened up old wounds. Now they’ll always be tortured by thinking of what might have been.”
Being hampered by no sentimental attachments themselves, the girls each tried on the ring. It was too large for Kitty but it fit Doris’s third finger.
“The setting is certainly old fashioned,” Kitty commented, “but can’t you imagine how gorgeous it would look in a modern one! I think the Misses Gates are foolish not to want it.”
“The question is, what shall we do with it? We can’t very well wear it around in front of them. They’re so sensitive. And the ring doesn’t belong to us.”