"That's not what I mean. Whether we did right or wrong in coming here, and whether it will help Michael---" She looked about her, as if fearing the very walls, then went on in a lowered voice. "Whether or not we can do anything to call off the search. . .I have found a dangerous weakness in our story, and the one physical detail I overlooked. I cannot hope Lord Purceville did not notice." She lifted Mary's hand before her, and slowly she understood. The ring . Such a bitter irony: the very symbol of life and enduring love, of the common purpose that bound them together. . .might work to the undoing of them all. For at that same moment the Lord Purceville sat alone in his study, pondering many things, not least among them that slender band of silver, set with a single diamond. The contradiction to the facade of innocence which the widow had tried to plant in his mind was obvious. Why did the girl wear a wedding ring, while the woman did not? Who, and where, was the man who had given it to her? And what string had Stephen pulled, perhaps inadvertently, to bring them here? For though in his hard way he loved his son, he was not blind to his shortcomings. It was unlikely that Stephen had, of his own devices, unearthed and exploited some weakness which he himself had missed. But most puzzling of all was a question far more simple. Why, after facing death to protect her, had the woman suddenly put her niece, his daughter, into the palm of his hand? Back in their chambers, the two women saw they had no choice but to see it through. To switch the ring back to the widow's hand might prove disastrous, while to change any element of their story (much of which was still unclear to Mary), would prove equally perilous. It was decided that they should speak of the ring as an heirloom, which had been passed on to the sole inheritor of Scott blood and tradition. This might also lend credence to the guardian's fierce determination to protect her. And in this same hurried conference, Anne Scott went over again all that should, and should not be said at Mary's inevitable, and surely imminent meeting with her father. Still, if she had been summoned to him in that moment, and had he not been distracted, he might easily have picked her story apart, and held them all at his questionable mercy.