I wiped some slow tears from my eyes. I was determined that my regrets should not overmaster me. I looked down at the ruby ring on my finger; it had the usual effect upon me; banishing my anxieties, lifting my mind from the sordidness of my surroundings, and taking me with it into a land of dreams, loveliness, and hope. I said to myself, "Now I will touch the secret spring. Now, little ring, you shall open your heart and show me the very depths of your secret life. First, however, I shall make an illumination in your honour." I opened my trunk; took out my bits of candles and lighted them; turned the key in the lock of my door, and sat down again by the dressing-table. It did not take me long to discover the slight nick by the serpent's eye. I pressed my finger lightly on the spring, and to my joy the central splendid ruby revolved aside on its hidden hinge, and the serpents with their brilliant flashing eyes moved apart like doors. The inner mechanism of the ring was bare; the tiny, hidden chamber was open. "What a secret I could put in here!" I said to myself. "Some hairs from a beloved head might be buried here along with thousands of brilliant hopes. Love itself could lie hidden here to leap into life and fulness when the right moment came." I wondered if love, with his thousand hopes and fears, could ever in such a sense come to me. Scarcely likely. I was one of the women who, in all probability, would never marry. I should have a strong life and plenty to do. I should have a courageous life and many battles to fight; but it was scarcely likely that my portion in the book of fate could also include the passionate lover, the tender and devoted husband, and the clinging, soft love which would come from baby lips, and enter into my heart through sweet child voices. I expected none of these things, and yet the trembling desire to grasp them all, to claim them all, to cry to fortune, "Give, give, give fully, give abundantly; don't starve _me_, but feed me until my whole nature is satisfied," swept over me as I looked into the heart of the ruby ring. As I did so I noticed for the first time that the little recess, which appeared at the first glance to be quite empty, contained a tiny piece of paper, which might have been placed there as a bed on which to lay a treasure. The paper was white, of the finest texture, exquisitely cut to fit the exact shape of the chamber. There was nothing whatever written on the paper. I touched it with the point of my small finger, it did not move; I pressed it, it did not stir. I was about to close the ring, but something induced me to look again more narrowly at the paper. Why was it put there? Why did it take up space so minute, so valuable?