With her hand on the high mantel-shelf and her head against her hand, Celia stood looking down on the vacant hearth. There was something of weariness in the attitude. What a delicate bit of porcelain she seemed! Allan had a sudden, illogical vision of a fire of blazing logs, and himself and Celia sitting before it.
He moved out of the shadow and she saw him; but though she stood erect and tense in a moment, she did not, as he expected, hasten from the room. Instead, she hesitated, and there was an appeal in her eyes very different from the defiance of a few weeks ago.
"I didn't know there was any one here," she said; adding, "Mr. Whittredge, I have wanted to have an opportunity to say that I regret my rudeness. I was unreasonable—I am sorry."
The childishness of the speech went to Allan's heart. He was conscious of keeping a very tight rein on himself as he answered, "Do not say that. I can understand a little of what you must feel. But does it mean that I may speak now and tell you that only a few weeks ago I first learned the cruel, the unwarranted, charge against your father? I had not understood before."
Celia lifted her hand as if to ward off a blow, but she did not speak.
Allan continued, "My silence must have seemed like a consent to it. And now, can we not meet, if only for a few minutes, on common ground? Must we be enemies because—"
"Not enemies—oh, no," Celia said, looking toward the door as if she wished to end the interview.
"Then—you will think me very insistent—but there is something I must explain to you. First, won't you let me give you a chair?"
"Thank you, I'll stand," Celia answered; she moved, however, to a table and leaned against it.
"It is about the ring. You perhaps remember the wording of the will? Before I left home to go abroad, so long ago, when I bade good-by to old Mr. Gilpin, he said to me, with that odd chuckle of his, 'Allan, I want Celia to have the ring when I die,' I replied that I hoped he would leave it to you in his will. Again, as I was leaving him, he called after me, 'Remember, Celia is to have the ring,' It escaped my mind until I heard of the will, then of course I remembered. I think he had a feeling that if he left it to anybody it should be to a member of our family, and yet he wished you to have it. Now we both know what the old man had in mind; but, although things have changed between us since then, the fact remains that the ring is yours." Allan took the little worn case from his breast pocket and held it out.