ering
presence would be her protection.

And then, still trembling, still unnerved, she descended to meet him.

He was with her father in the drawing-room. The place was littered with
wedding-presents.

As she entered, he came towards her, and in a moment his quiet hand
closed upon hers. Her father went out in search of her mother and they
were alone.

"What a collection of beautiful things you have here!" he said.

She looked at him, met his steady eyes, and suddenly some force of speech
broke loose within her; she uttered words wild and passionate, such as
she had never till that moment dreamed of uttering.

"Oh, don't talk of them! Don't think of them! They suffocate me!"

She saw his face change, but she could not have analysed the expression
it took. He was silent for a moment, and in that moment his fingers
tightened hard and close upon her hand.

Then, "I have brought you a small offering on my own account," he said in
his courteous, rather tired voice. "May I present it? Or would you rather
I waited a little?"

She felt the tears welling up, swiftly, swiftly, and clasped her throat
to stay them. "Of course I would like it," she murmured almost
inarticulately. "That--that is different."

He took a small, white packet from his pocket and put it into the hand he
had been holding, without a word.

Dumbly, with quivering fingers, she opened it. There was something of
tragedy in the silence, something of despair.

The paper fluttered to the ground, leaving a leather case in her grasp.
She glanced up at him.

"Won't you look inside?" he said gently.

She did so, in her eyes those burning tears she could not check. And
there, gleaming on its bed of white velvet, she saw a wonderful jewel--a
great star-shaped sapphire, deep as the heart of a fathomless pool, edged
with diamonds that flashed like the sun upon the ripples of its shores.
She gazed and gazed in silence. It was the loveliest thing she had ever
seen.

Scott was watching her, his eyes very still, unchangeably steadfast. "The
sapphire for friendship," he said.

She started as one awaking from a dream. In the passage outside the
half-open door she heard the sound of her mother's voice approaching.
With a swift movement she closed the case and hid it in her dress.

"I can't show it to anyone yet," she said hurriedly.

Her tone appealed. He answered her immediately. "It is for you and no one
else."

His voice held nought but kindness, compr