Why then not test their combined effect? I certainly needed
help from some quarter. Never would William allow me to be married
to another while he lived. He would yet appear and I should need
thus great assistance (great enough to be transmitted from father to
son) as none of the Moores had needed it yet; though what it was I
did not know and did not even try to guess.
"Yet when I got to the room I did not drag out the filigree ball at
once nor even take more than one fearful side-long look at the
picture. In drawing off my glove I had seen his ring - the ring you
had once asked about. It was such a cheap affair; the only one he
could get in that obscure little town where we were married. I
lied when you asked me if it was a family jewel; lied but did not
take it off, perhaps because it clung so tightly, as if in
remembrance of the vows it symbolized. But now the very sight of
it gave me a fright. With his ring on my finger I could not defy
him and swear his claim to be false the dream of a man maddened by
his experiences in the Klondike. It must come off. Then, perhaps,
I should feel myself a free woman. But it would not come off. I
struggled with it and tugged in vain; then I bethought me of using
a nail file to sever it. This I did, grinding and grinding at it
till the ring finally broke, and I could wrench it off and cast it
away out of sight and, as I hoped, out of my memory also.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356