"I never ought to have lost patience with a girl like you, and I ought to have known you better. But I was too young and stupid, it was a dreadful thing to me when I knew I had wronged you--had been so wrong-- and couldn't make up for it. And when I saw you again, I knew I had never thought enough of you, though I loved you so much." "Oh, Lucian--no--" "If we'd married, I suppose I should have learned in time. But I should have made mistakes and vexed you, I wasn't fit to guide you. I should always have thought I knew best Well, then, you see it has all been for the best, and I want to tell you, that if I hadn't had the loving, and the getting to understand you, and the trying to get on without you, it would have been much worse for me now. And so, as that poor little old time has helped me to die better, it seemed to me that perhaps the thought of it might make your life better for you--at least to know what you have done for me." "Oh, Lucian, that's not quite it. Why was I such a wicked girl as to forget you? It wasn't because I was angry. If I had been faithful too--you might--we might--" "No, dear," said Lucian. "That's what I want to show you. You couldn't--you wanted more than I had got to give you. That's what I found out. You'll have it some day, and then you won't feel I did you nothing but harm." "Oh," said Amethyst, with streaming tears, "I shall always--I shall always feel--_glorified_ by your having loved me--_so_." He got hold of her hand, and held it gently in both his own, and when she was a little calmer, he said-- "Tell me about your troubles." "They're not worth it," she said, "hard, sordid money troubles--things that are hateful. And the wrong things I do--and feel--and think." "I think there'll be better times for you," said Lucian; then he smiled, and said, "As there will be soon for me." "If--if you could but get better--" Lucian gave her the strangest look. "Oh, no," he said, quietly, and then, with a little more of his usual manner-- "I'm sorry to have made you cry. But I think you'll like by and by to know I quite understood. Now there's just one thing more." He took hold of a gold locket that hung from his watch chain, and opened it slowly, then took out of it the broad gipsy ring, set with a big amethyst and two diamonds--the very ring that his boyish taste had thought both handsome and symbolical enough to give his betrothed. "Let me give it you back," he said. "Perhaps you won't like to wear it now; but, when you put another ring on your finger, let this be a guard to it. That's my fancy." "Oh, Lucian! Put it on--I never--never shall--" "I think you will," he said. "I _hope_ you will." He took her warm young hand, and, with his weak fingers, put on the ring, and back upon them both came the joyous moment when he had first put it on, and "all the world was young."