'You'll have to. What tie could there be between you and me?'
'Our womanhood.'
'You don't know!'—with a bitter laugh. 'And you're but a fine lady after all, talking about things you don't understand.'
'I am certainly not a fine lady. I am better off now; but I have lived upon bread-and-water as well as you have.'
'Without deserving it?'—eagerly.
'I cannot say as much as that. I have not the slightest doubt I did deserve it, in one way or another. At anyrate it did me no harm whatever to go into training a little. A great deal depends upon one's way of taking things, you know.'
'I can't make you out.'
'Never mind about making me out. Try to trust me; do try.'
'I've a good mind to trust you—in real earnest. There's something about you that makes me feel—— I should like you to know,' she said musingly. Then after a few moments, during which I left her undisturbed, she added: 'Yes, you shall know; though there isn't another soul I'd tell as much to. I never took that ring at all!'
'A ring you were supposed to have taken?'