miled sadly as she went on. "Had it been otherwise, I should have
instituted a legal inquiry, and left this interview to some one cooler,
calmer, and less interested than myself. But I think, I _know_ I can
trust you. Perhaps we women are weak and foolish to talk of an
_instinct_, and when you know my story you may have reason to believe
that but little dependence can be placed on _that_; but I am not wrong
in saying,--am I?" (with a sad smile) "that _you_ are not above that
weakness?" She paused, closed her lips tightly, and grasped her hands
before her. "You say you found that ring in the road some three months
before--the--the--you know what I mean--the body--was discovered?"

"Yes."

"You thought it might have been dropped by some one in passing?"

"I thought so, yes--it belonged to no one in the camp."

"Before your cabin or on the highway?"

"Before my cabin."

"You are _sure_?" There was something so very sweet and sad in her
smile that it oddly made Cass color.

"But my cabin is near the road," he suggested.

"I see! And there was nothing else; no paper nor envelope?"

"Nothing."

"And you kept it because of the odd resemblance one of the names bore
to yours?"

"Yes."

"For no other reason?"

"None." Yet Cass felt he was blushing.

"You'll forgive my repeating a question you have already answered, but
I am _so_ anxious. There was some attempt to prove at the inquest that
the ring had been found on the body of--the unfortunate man. But you
tell me it was not so?"

"I can swear it."

"Good God--the traitor!" She took a hurried step forward, turned to the
window, and then came back to Cass with a voice broken with emotion. "I
have told you I could trust you. That ring was mine!"

She stopped, and then went on hurriedly. "Years ago I gave it to a man
who deceived and wronged me; a man whose life since then has been a
shame and disgrace to all who knew him; a man who, once a gentleman,
sank so low as to become the associate of thieves and ruffians; sank so
low, that when he died, by violence--a traitor even to them--his own
confederates shrunk from him, and left him to fill a nameless grave.
That man's body you found!"

Cass started. "And his name was----?"

"Part of your surname. Cass--Henry Cass."

"You see why Providence seems to have brought that ring to you," she
went on. "But you ask me why, knowing this, I am so eager to know if
the ring was found by you in the road, or if it were fo