"Your friends indeed! What do you intend to do about it?"
Meanwhile her hand, persistently kept in her pocket, nervously moved the electric armature, and a sudden twinge of pain startled her. Her finger, caught between the wires, felt the shock of a returning current. Suddenly the pain flashed again, and she understood it. Elmer was replying to her. She forced herself to read his words by the pain the wires caused her, and she spelled out:
"Keep cool. Don't fear him."
"Seems to me you're precious silent, miss."
"One might well keep silence while you use such language as you do, Lawrence Belford."
"Who's a better right?"
"No man has a right not to be a gentleman, and as for your right, I have decided to withdraw it."
"What do you mean?" he cried in sudden anger.
She drew her hand out of her pocket, slowly took off her engagement ring, and said,
"That."