ted
him.

"Will you describe that ring, Mr. Huntingdon?"

"Willingly--it is of Indian workmanship, I fancy, and has a curiously
wrought gold setting, with an emerald very deeply sunk into the
center."

"Yes, yes; it must be she," murmured Raby, and then for the moment he
seemed able to say no more; only Margaret watched him, with tears in
her eyes.

Erle's interest and curiosity were strongly excited. There must be
some strange mystery at the bottom of this he thought. He had always
been sure that Miss Davenport had some history. She was wonderfully
handsome; but with all his predilection for pretty faces he had never
quite taken to her; he had regarded her with involuntary distrust.

He looked at Mr. Ferrers as he stood evidently absorbed in thought.
What a grand-looking man he was, he said to himself, if he would only
hold his head up, and push back the mass of dull brown hair that lay
so heavily on his forehead.

There was something sad in that spectacle of sightless strength; and
to those who first saw him, Raby Ferrers always seemed like some
patient giant oppressed and bowed down, both physically and mentally,
but grand in a certain sublime resignation that endured because he was
too proud to complain.

"It must be so," he observed at last. "Margaret, I see light at last.
Mr. Huntingdon"--turning to his guest--"I have been very rude, very
uncourteous, but your words have given me a shock; you have touched
accidentally on a deep trouble. Now, will you be good and kind enough
to sit down and tell me all you can about Miss Davenport, as you call
her."

"Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Ferrers." And, with very few
interruptions from either the brother or sister, Erle gave a full and
graphic description of Crystal's present home and surroundings--all
the more willingly that his listeners seemed to hang breathlessly on
his words.

He described eloquently that shabby room over Mrs. Watkins's, that was
yet so pleasant and home-like; the mother with her worn, beautiful
face, who moved like a duchess about her poor rooms, and was only the
head teacher in a girls' school. He dismissed the subject of the
gentle, fair-haired Fern in a few forcible words; but he spoke of
little Florence, and then of Percy, and of the curious way in which
all their lives were involved.

Only once Mr. Ferrers stopped him. "And Miss Davenport teaches, you
say?"

"Yes, both she and Miss Trafford have morning engagements. I think
Mi