"I must plead innocence until shown my guilt. So far, I have not even been able to learn in what the allusion to yourself consisted."
"You have not?"
"No."
Grant stood, tightly compressing his lips, for some moments. He then said:
"You remember that affair of the gold ring?"
"Very well."
"You mentioned this to C—."
"No. Nor to a living soul since the occurrence of the fact."
"What?"
"Nothing on that subject has ever passed my lips. I believed that you saw and repented of your error, and in honour and in conscience refrained from even the remotest allusion to the subject."