She put her fingers to the ring and drew it off, and without a word offered it to him.
He took the ring and looked at it, doubtful what more to say.
"Noémi," he asked, "whose arms are these engraved on it? They seem to me to belong to the Fénelon family."
"Yes—they are the Fénelon arms."
"Was the ring——" He was about to ask if it had been stolen, but checked himself.
"It was my father's ring," she said in a low tone.
"Your father's! Was Le Gros Guillem a Fénelon?"
"Le Gros Guillem! Oh, no! Do you not know and understand?"
"Know, understand what?"
"Le Gros Guillem was not really my father; he carried off my mother from Fénelon, along with me when I was an infant in arms. Le Gros Guillem killed my father, who was the Baron de Fénelon. But I was a child and I was brought up at Domme. I knew nothing of that. Le Gros Guillem always treated me as his child and loved me as such, and I—I always called him and looked up to him as father."