d been
laid through, it. The depot was near Annie's house. As we had apprised
no one of our arrival, we found ourselves alone on the platform when we
stepped out of the cars.

'Let us call and see Annie,' said Miriam.

'Before you visit your father and mother?' said I, surprised.

'This is the hour Ackermann usually visits her.'

'I will go with you.'

It was but a few minutes' walk. We felt perfectly at home there. We
opened the front door, and walked in without ceremony. No one was in the
front rooms. We passed quickly through them into the little room at the
foot of the back stairs. I noticed the furniture as soon as I entered.
It was new, and was arranged pretty much as Miriam had described it.
Ackermann and Annie stood by the window looking into the garden. I am
not sure, but I think he was holding her hand. They turned as we
entered, and, for a few minutes, were speechless with amazement. Annie
was the first to recover herself.

'What a delightful surprise!' she exclaimed, running toward us; but she
stopped before she was half across the room. Something in Miriam's
manner arrested her. Ackermann's perceptions were quicker. He saw at one
glance that Miriam knew all, and, though very much agitated, he stood,
looking defiantly at her. She took no notice of Annie, but said to
Ackermann:

'I trusted you. You have deceived me. I believed in your love so fully
that I would have been yours faithfully until death. You lightly threw
mine away. I thought your words of love so sacred that I kept them hid
in my heart from the sight of the most faithful friends. You have made
mine the subjects of jest. But I do not come here to reproach you.
Henceforth you are nothing to me. I came to demand my ring.'

'I have no ring of yours,' said he, with calm decision. 'This ring that
I wear you put upon my finger, and told me not to part with it under
_any_ circumstances. You charged me to wear it until death. It is mine.
I will not part with it, even to you.'

Miriam looked at him incredulously for a moment. Her fortitude began to
give way.

'I do not know,' she said slowly, 'why you wish to keep that ring. You
can never look at it without thinking of me, and of the words of love I
have spoken to you. It is hateful to me to think that you have anything
to remind you of the past. For this reason I want the ring. I will not
wear it. I will not keep it. I will destroy it utterly. But by the
memory of my past trust, I beseech yo