She turned at once, to see Dorothy sitting up and looking intently at her, while she seemed to fumble under the pillow for something.
"What is it, dear?" Mary asked, hastening to the side of the bed.
Dorothy drew from beneath the pillow a heavy ring of yellow gold, with a great ruby imbedded in it, like a drop of glowing wine.
"There it is," she whispered, putting the ring into Mary's hand. "It is his ring,—only he gave it to me. Hide it,—hide it, Mary. Never let any one see—any one know. I want to tell you all about it, but I am so tired now, so tired, and—" The girl fell back with closed eyes, and in a moment she appeared to be asleep.
After standing a few minutes with her eyes fixed upon the unconscious face, Mary opened her hand and looked at the ring.
It was a man's ring, and one she recalled at once as having seen before.
It had been upon the shapely brown hand lifted to remove the hat from a young man's head, that summer day, at the Sachem's Cave.
There came to her a sudden rush of misgiving, as she asked herself the meaning of it all. What had this hated Britisher's ring to do with Dorothy's illness and with her ravings? What was all this about Master Weeks, and signing the register?
She determined to tell her husband of what she had heard and seen, and let his judgment decide what was to be done.
And yet when he returned, and with him his father and Aunt Lettice and 'Bitha, all of them sad-faced and alarmed over Dorothy's sudden sickness, something seemed to hold back the words Mary had intended to speak. And so she said nothing to her husband, but hid the ring away, resolved that for the present, at least, she would hold her own counsel.