At this she glanced over her shoulder at her husband, who had walked to the hearth, and stood looking into the fire.
"Come, little girl, cheer up," said Jack, "for to-night, at least. You are to have a little visit with him before he returns to his quarters. And before to-morrow noon he will be on the road to Boston."
With a long, sobbing sigh, she released him; then, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, she said with a wan smile, "It is hard—cruelly hard, to have one's heart so torn in opposite ways."
He knew her meaning, and thought, as he went away, how small was their own grief compared with that of poor Hugh, who, utterly unmanned, had immured himself in his quarters.
Dorothy stole to the hearth, where stood the silent figure of her husband; and as he still did not speak, she ventured to reach out and steal a timid hand within the one hanging by his side.
His fingers instantly prisoned it in a close clasp, and so they remained for a time looking silently into the fire. Presently he sighed, and drawing the chain and ruby ring from his pocket, said very gently, "Will you wear this ring, sweetheart, until such time as I can get one more suitable?"
"Aye—but I'd sooner not wear any other," she replied, looking wistfully at him,—awed and troubled by this new manner of his.
"Would you?" And he smiled as he fastened the chain about her neck. "Then I shall be obliged to have the half of it taken away, in order to make a proper fit for that small finger. But you must let me put on a plain gold band, as well, so that all may be in proper form."
She caught his hand and laid it against her cheek, while the light of the burning wood caught in the ruby ring, making it gleam like a ruddier fire against the folds of her dark-green habit.
"Why are you so unhappy?" she asked.