Looking about he spied a small boy busy weeding. He called the child to him and led him, to the top of the long narrow path, at the end of which was the green with the peacock bush in the centre, and the old arbour at the side. He felt no doubt that Marion was still there, her husband fortunately having gone to the stables.
“Now, my boy,” said he, “run as fast as you can to the summer-house down there and give this letter to the lady you’ll see there. If she is gone bring it back to me. Be as quick as you can and I’ll have a shilling ready for you when you come back.”
The child was soon back again.
“Was the lady still there?” asked Ralph.
“Yes, Sir,” said the little messenger, glowing with delight at the thought of a day’s wages so easily earned. “Yes, Sir, the young lady were there, and she said, ‘Thank you, and would I give this to the gentleman,’ ” holding out a little turquoise ring, as he spoke. A simple, common little ring enough. She had had it from childhood. He had often seen it on her little finger. He seized it eagerly, and turned away. Then recollecting himself, he gave the boy the promised reward, thanked him quietly, and returned to the house.
At the door the post-chaise stood waiting, and in another minute he was gone, thankful at last to feel free to think over, as he phrased it, his part of the day’s tragedy. Think of it! Did he ever not think of it during that weary day and night, and many a weary day and night to come? Women say men do not know what it is to be broken-hearted! That little turquoise ring might have told a different tale.
“I wonder,” thought Ralph as he drove along on his solitary hopeless journey. “I wonder what she will think it right to do. She said her part was the worse to bear. I fear it is. She is stronger and more unselfish than most women, but, on the other hand, she is truthful and ingenuous. Will she be strong enough for his sake to leave things as they are, to let him think that at least she is giving him no less than she promised? Or will it be impossible for her to live with him without to some extent confiding in him, even though by so doing she wrecks, for the time at least, his happiness, poor fellow, and what chance she has of any herself? I see no distinct right or wrong in the case, but I wonder what she will do. Oh, if I could have saved her this! Suffering for myself I can bear. If only I could have borne it all, my burden would have seemed lighter!”
He caught the express at Bexley and went on in it to London. For no reason, with no object, save that he felt it would be a relief to him to escape the unendurable cross-questioning which would certainly have awaited him, had he returned straight to Friar’s Springs.
Late in the evening, as he travelled on through the twilight into the intense darkness of a moon-less midsummer night, a strange feeling came over him, bringing with it a faint, slight breath of consolation.
“She said truly,” he thought, “that I was more fortunate than she in that I am free and unfettered, bound by no uncongenial ties to another. For me at least it is no sin to love her still, for I know it is not in my nature ever to replace her by any other woman. And who knows but what some day in the far future, though I may never see her again, I may in some way be able to serve her, to lighten the lot it is so bitter to me to think I have been the means of darkening.” And somehow there came into his mind the remembrance of a well-known, simple little German ballad, that years and years ago, as a mere boy, he had liked and been struck by. For he had been peculiar as a boy—dreamy, morbid and sentimental. The two last verses rang in his ears that night, over and over again he heard them. And ever after they were associated with what this bitter day had brought to pass. And the face of the dead maiden on the bier grew to him like that of his own lost love.