Part 10 (1/2)
The rich, red gold circlet hung loosely enough, however, on Karine's slim little finger, and a sudden strong desire that she should allow me to look at it caught hold of me.
”Would it be asking too much,” I said, ”to have the wonderful heirloom in my hand to examine for a moment?”
Without a word she slipped the ring off and gave it to me, almost as though it was a relief to feel its absence.
In a flash a certain recollection had leaped into my mind. There was an inscription inside, Harvey Farnham had told me. If the ring had been cut doubtless the words written within would show some trace of the violent treatment to which the band of gold had been subjected; and I wished, for a reason I hardly dared admit to myself, to ascertain if this were the case.
I moved towards the window and, ostensibly catching the light upon the facets of the matchless stone, peeped into the circlet. To my surprise the words inscribed on the gold were ”Kismet and Miss Cunningham.” They were absolutely unbroken, not a letter blurred, and the surface of the ring gave the appearance of having been untouched since first it was fas.h.i.+oned. I was certain that it had not been cut. This being so, how had the thing been removed from the finger of its owner?
”You are wondering at the words written inside, aren't you?” Karine asked, coming a little nearer to me. ”It does seem extraordinary that they should be there, doesn't it, when you think that the ring was made many years ago, and was not intended for me at all? But--Mr. Wildred has explained the mystery, which is a part of the history of the heirloom, and accounts for his being particularly anxious for me to wear it.”
I, too, could have explained the ”mystery.” I had been told by Farnham that the stone had come from the first diamond mine in which he had been interested. It had been fancifully dubbed ”Kismet,” and the gold mine, which he had lately sold to Carson Wildred, had (as he had informed me that night of our meeting at the theatre) rejoiced in the name of the ”Miss Cunningham.” Doubtless the inscription was intended to commemorate the fact that the gold forming the ring had been taken from the one mine, the diamond from the other. But, knowing all this, I was none the less anxious to hear what Karine might have to say.
”It does sound an odd coincidence,” I remarked. ”Will you tell me the story?”
I had a very specific object in carrying on this conversation; but as for Karine, I could feel that her part of it was sustained merely for the sake of keeping me from treading upon more dangerous ground. Yet despite this nervous anxiety of hers, I could see--or I flattered myself--that she was vaguely surprised and piqued that I should be willing to discuss so trifling a subject during the fleeting moments before Lady Tressidy might be expected to appear.
”You may hear the little romance if you like,” the girl said, a faint wistfulness in her sweet voice. ”Sixty or seventy years ago, Mr. Wildred tells me, a very das.h.i.+ng ancestor of his fell in love with a Miss Cunningham. That is not a very uncommon name, you know. He was penniless, and she an heiress. Her father would have nothing to do with him, and told him he need not hope to win his daughter unless within a year he could afford to buy her the finest diamond betrothal ring ever seen in the country.
”The lover vowed it was 'Kismet' that he should marry Miss Cunningham, and swore to return and claim her, by slipping such a ring on her finger, exactly twelve months from the day he was sent away.
”He had the most extraordinary adventures in search of a fortune, always ending in failure, until the last month of the appointed time. He was in India, working in the diamond mines, when one day he found this very stone.
”He sailed at once for England, had the ring made, and the words you see engraved inside. As he had said, he arrived on the very day appointed, but only to find the girl coming out from church after her marriage with another man. He threw the ring at her feet, and flung himself away; but at her death it was sent back to him again, and though he never married, he gave it to his brother's bride on her wedding-day. Since then it has remained in the Wildred family.”
I could have laughed aloud at this sentimental tale invented by the man (whom I now believed had somehow contrived to steal the jewel) to account for the commonplace words it would have been difficult to erase.
Had I laughed, however, my laughter would have been bitter indeed, ending in an even increased desire to save from him and his trickery the girl I loved.
It is needless to say that I did not laugh, but something of what was in my mind must have been visible on my face, for Karine, as she finished her story, looked up at me searchingly. ”What are you hiding from me, Mr. Stanton?” she anxiously questioned. ”It is about the ring--and if you are my friend, as you say, you will not keep it a secret from me.”
”It _is_ about the ring, Miss Cunningham,” I replied impulsively.
”I can't tell you all, for the facts have hardly yet grouped themselves in my own brain. But if they have such bearing upon your happiness as I have some reason to think, you shall know them as soon as I can make them clear to you. Will you trust me meanwhile--will you try to remember that I am striving to collect facts which may help to release you from the necessity for an unworthy marriage? Never for one moment since I saw you last have I let slip the hope of saving you from what you confessed must be a blighted future. Now, I may be mistaken, but I believe that I begin to see my way!”
She looked at the ring, which I had returned to her, with startled, dilating eyes. ”Something connected with _this_!” she murmured.
”Yes. It is as if I had placed my eye to that little circlet, looking through it as through a spygla.s.s towards my goal. I shall work after this, Miss Cunningham, as I could not work before, because I have now a fixed starting-point. It may be an intricate tangle that I shall have to unravel, it may be a tedious task, yet----”
”There are only six weeks--_less_ than six weeks to do it in!” she murmured, but a faint colour had sprung to her cheeks, a light of hope to her eyes.
”Is it not possible,” I begged, ”if I find myself near success, yet stopped temporarily midway by some unforeseen obstacle, that you can delay your marriage? Let me have that to hope for. It will help me to win.”
She shook her head sadly, and the rose-flush died.
”It is useless to think of it,” she said. ”You may imagine, since I have confessed so much to you, that it was not _my_ plan to name such an early date. It was Mr. Wildred who suggested it--indeed, he insisted, and unfortunately he is in a position to insist.”
”Has nothing changed since we met at the Savoy?” I hurriedly asked.
”Can't you explain to me the power which you admitted then that this man holds over you?”