"I am going to plait it into a braid for the ring," I said. "I think that I can file the ends, and make it serve. It is all I have. I wear no jewelry, and would not give you one of the brass rings we use in trade. This is at least gold." She watched me straighten the kinks in the wire. "You took that from something you valued," she said. "I will wear the brass ring. Surely you can replace this wire where it belongs." I shook my head. "It was a filigree frame," I volunteered. I had spoken with as little thought as a dog barks, and quite as witlessly. I knew that as soon as I heard my words. I looked at the woman. But she was not going to question me. "If it was a frame, it held a miniature," she said quietly. "Please twist the wire around it again. I prefer the brass ring." "Because?" "I would not rob any one. If you have carried the picture all these leagues, it is a token from some one you love; some one who loves you. I have no part in that." I went on plaiting the wire. "The woman of the miniature will know no robbery," I said, "because she knew no possession. Mademoiselle, you seem in every way to be a woman with whom it is wisest to have a clear understanding." "You need tell me nothing." "It is better to tell the whole, now that you have stumbled on a part. I was nothing to that woman whose face I carried with me. She did not know I had the picture. I might never have told her. It was nothing, you see. It was all in a man's mind, and the man now has sterner matters to fill his thought. I would like you to wear this ring." "Why not the other?" I laughed at her a little. "I shall try not to give you spurious metal,--even granted that our bargain is provisional. Now, mademoiselle, may I take you to the lodge I have had made? In two hours we are to be married." She followed at my side, and I took her to the lodge, and pointed her within. She glanced at what I had done, and I saw her bite her lip. She turned to me without a smile. "It all makes it harder," she said indefinitely. "Harder to think of the wrong that I am doing you and the other woman." I cannot abide misapprehension. We were alone. "Wait!" I begged. "Mademoiselle, you cannot probe a man's thought. Often he cannot probe his own. But I am not unhappy. A man marries many brides, and Ambition, if the truth be told, is, perhaps, the dearest. I shall embrace her. You should be able to understand." "But the woman. She must have seen that you loved her. She may have cared more in return than you knew."