ken of Mr.
Roberts' and her united initials.

But it was not this she had in mind. Though she took up the clock, she
did not turn it round, only looked at it steadily, her trembling lips and
a tear--the first they had seen--testifying to the rush of old memories
which this simple little object brought back to her long suffering heart.
Then she laid it down again and seemed to hesitate.

"I want to get at the works inside," she appealed to them with a helpless
accent. "Can you tear off the back? That would be the quickest way. But
no, I know a quicker," and lifting the clock again she turned it upside
down and shook it.

They heard--what did they hear? No one could say, but when she again
reversed it, there fell out upon the table and rolled to the floor a
small gold circlet. Lifting it, Mr. Gryce held it out to her. Taking it,
she carried it over to the District Attorney and placed it in his hand.

"Read the inscription inside."

He did so, and looking quickly up, said:

"This is a wedding ring! Yours! You believe yourself to have been married
to him."

"I _was_ married to him in Switzerland. The marriage was legal; he knows
it, he acknowledges it, or why should he keep this ring. I have endured
seeing him put another woman in my place. I have kept silence for years;
but when he asks the right name of the child shot down in the museum, and
asks it in a way which compels answer, then I must make known my rightful
claims. For that child was not only mine, but _his_; born after he left
me, and reared without his knowledge, first in this country and then in
France."

And breaking down now utterly, she fell on her knees sobbing out her soul
at the feet of him from whose honor she had torn the last poor, pitiful
shred.

As for him, he said nothing; even his lips refused the smallest cry. Only
his hand which had hung at his side went to his heart; and thus he stood
swaying--swaying, till he finally fell forward into the arms she suddenly
threw out to receive him.

"Carleton! Carleton!" she wailed, searching for consciousness in his fast
glazing eye. "It was to show you your child that I made the appointment
at the museum. Not for myself. Oh, not for myself, but for your sake,
that you might have----"

Useless; all useless.

He was dead.

* * * * *

Would she have had it otherwise? Would any of them? When they were quite
sure of the fact, she placed the ring in his still warm ha