n't mind losing the ring so very much,
since it was really hers, but I was a little hurt that you did n't buy
me a ring."

He winced perceptibly, and she hastened to make her peace.

"What a queer old thing it was! I liked it at first because you gave
it to me, though it seemed to have an unlucky look, somehow. I 'd much
rather have had just a little ring, with a solitary diamond in it."

"Did you tell her where you got it?" he demanded abruptly.

"She asked who gave me the ring, and I told her. But I did n't tell
her we were engaged, or anything like that."

"What did you tell her, then?" he persisted.

"Just that you gave me the ring, Tom. Then she told me you must have
found it in the car."

"I suppose she blamed me for not returning the thing to the office," he
suggested.

His effort to appear indifferent did not escape her awakened
perception. She suffered again the pang of losing him that had brought
her to her knees on that dreadful night, and fluttered toward him in
terror.

"Oh, no, Tom," she cried. "She did n't say anything about that, but
she seemed angry with me, though she was so quiet. I thought,
Tom,--how foolish you will think me,--that she loved you and meant to
take you away from me!"

He laughed harshly. "She love me!"

The bitter incredulity of his accent was too pronounced to be feigned,
as indeed it was not, and she lifted her head, reassured. "I might
have known it," she said, dashing away her tears with a tremulous
little laugh, "but I loved you so. And she warned me against you. She
said you meant nothing good by me. I suppose she thought you would
want to marry a lady, now that you are mayor; but at the time I felt
somehow that she wanted you for herself!"

A subtler and more highly developed man would have foreseen all this
suffering from the first; he would have sown the wind with some
knowledge of the whirlwind to come. But Emmet was a child in matters
feminine, and he stood aghast at the thought of the probable effect
upon Lena of the inevitable discovery of the truth. If the very fancy
caused her such grief, what would she do when she found out that her
imagination had been prophetic? A frantic desire to postpone the blow
that must fall upon her so soon gave him the skill of a Faustus. He
scoffed at the absurdity of her fear, and a bitter conviction of his
wife's selfishness gave his arguments the ring of truth. Only, when he
drew a picture of the differenc