"Worthiness or unworthiness do not seem to come into it at all," she answered, her voice all shaken and low. "When one loves, one loves in spite of everything--in spite of everything." Something in her tone, and in the strange illumination of her eyes, momentarily silenced Sir Arthur; he dimly felt himself to be in the presence of a force infinitely greater than anything that had ever come into his own experience. He would not have owned that he had limitations--to a man of his type, the difficulty of owning to limitations is almost insuperable--but far down in the depths of his mind, he vaguely realised that Margaret had reached a height to which he had never attained. "And--after all, Arthur--whatever you may feel," Margaret went on, more quietly, the colour ebbing from her face, "doesn't it still seem fairer to say--_De mortuis_----" Sir Arthur bent his head; and before his mind rose the half-defaced letters of that other Latin proverb, which Margaret had traced with her finger on the sun-dial, out amongst the roses in the sunshine of June. "_Per incertas, certa amor_." And she was still certain of her love--in spite of--everything! Silence fell between them after those last words of hers; and it was she who presently broke it, speaking with an effort, and in more ordinary and matter-of-fact tones. "But I did not telegraph to you to come here, in order to worry you with any of my own affairs. I thought I ought to ask you to come, because a strange thing has happened--a most curious coincidence. Bring that chair nearer to the bed, and sit down. You look so judicial standing over me." Sir Arthur meekly obeyed, feeling within himself a faint wonder, at his own unquestioning obedience, yet compelled to do what that low voice commanded. There was a certain queenliness about this woman, a dignified aloofness, which had a curiously compelling effect upon those about her. The man who so obediently drew up a chair, and seated himself, felt it hard to realise that this was his own sister, his younger sister Margaret, whom in the days of their unregenerate youth, some people had called "Peg." It had been almost impossible to see in her changed face, the features of the beautiful girl who had laughed amongst the roses by the sun-dial, and yet, in spite of the change wrought by sorrow, and suffering, and the ploughshares of life, she was regally beautiful, even more beautiful than in the days of her girlhood. "I understood from your telegram that you wanted to see me about Ellen's pendant, though I cannot conceive why you should know anything about its whereabouts." "I am afraid I don't know anything about _Ellen's_ pendant," was the answer. "But I do know something about the pendant you mistook for Ellen's, on Christmas Day. The ornament Christina Moore was wearing, was not Ellen's, but her own."