ase let me see it," Enid said, pleadingly. "Let me be put out of
my misery."

David handed the ring over; Enid regarded it long and searchingly. With a
little sigh of regret she passed it back to David once more.

"You had better keep it," she said. "At any rate, it is likely to be
valuable evidence for us later on. But it is not the ring I hoped to see.
It is a clever copy, but the black pearls are not so fine, and the
engraving inside is not so worn as it used to be on the original. It is
evidently a copy that Henson has had made to tease my aunt with, to offer
her at some future date in return for the large sums of money that she
gave him. No; the original of that ring is popularly supposed to be at
the bottom of the North Sea. If such had been the case--seeing that
Henson had never handled it before the Great Tragedy came--the original
must be in existence."

"Why so?" David asked.

"Because the ring must have been copied from it," Enid said. "It is a
very faithful copy indeed, and could not have been made from mere
directions--take the engraving inside, for instance. The engraving forms
the cipher of the house of Littimer, If Henson has the real ring, if we
can find it, the tragedy goes out of our lives for ever."

"I should like to hear the story," said Steel.

Enid paused and lowered the lamp as a step was heard outside. But it was
only Williams.

"Mr. Henson is in his bedroom still," he said. "I've just taken him the
cigars. He's got a lump on his head as big as a billiard-ball. Thinks he
hit it against a branch. And my lady have locked herself in her room and
refused to see anybody."

"Go and look at our patient," Enid commanded.

Williams disappeared, to return presently with the information that Van
Sneck was still fast asleep and lying very peacefully.

"Looks like waiting till morning, it do," he said. "And now I'll go back
and keep my eye on that 'ere distinguished philanthropist."

Williams disappeared, and Enid turned up the lamp again. Her face was
pale and resolute. She motioned David towards a chair.

"I'll tell you the story," she said. "I am going to confide in you the
saddest and strangest tale that ever appealed to an imaginative
novelist."

CHAPTER XLIV

ENID SPEAKS

"I am going to tell you the story of the great sorrow that has darkened
all our lives, but I shall have to go a long way back to do it," Enid
said. "I go back to the troublous day of Charles, as far back as