"A ring!" Enid gasped. "Did you happen to see it? Oh, if it is only--. But he would not be so silly as that. A ring is the cause of all the trouble. _Did_ you see it?" "I not only saw it but I have it in my possession," David replied. Enid turned up the flaring little lamp with a shaking hand. Quite unstrung, she held out her fingers for the ring. "It is just possible," she said, hoarsely, "that you possess the key of the situation. If that ring is what I hope it is we can tumble Henson into the dust to-morrow. We can drive him out of the country, and he will never, never trouble us again. How did you get it?" "Mrs. Henson dropped it and I picked it up." "Please let me see it," Enid said, pleadingly. "Let me be put out of my misery." David handed the ring over; Enid regarded it long and searchingly. With a little sigh of regret she passed it back to David once more. "You had better keep it," she said. "At any rate, it is likely to be valuable evidence for us later on. But it is not the ring I hoped to see. It is a clever copy, but the black pearls are not so fine, and the engraving inside is not so worn as it used to be on the original. It is evidently a copy that Henson has had made to tease my aunt with, to offer her at some future date in return for the large sums of money that she gave him. No; the original of that ring is popularly supposed to be at the bottom of the North Sea. If such had been the case--seeing that Henson had never handled it before the Great Tragedy came--the original must be in existence." "Why so?" David asked. "Because the ring must have been copied from it," Enid said. "It is a very faithful copy indeed, and could not have been made from mere directions--take the engraving inside, for instance. The engraving forms the cipher of the house of Littimer, If Henson has the real ring, if we can find it, the tragedy goes out of our lives for ever." "I should like to hear the story," said Steel. Enid paused and lowered the lamp as a step was heard outside. But it was only Williams. "Mr. Henson is in his bedroom still," he said. "I've just taken him the cigars. He's got a lump on his head as big as a billiard-ball. Thinks he hit it against a branch. And my lady have locked herself in her room and refused to see anybody." "Go and look at our patient," Enid commanded. Williams disappeared, to return presently with the information that Van Sneck was still fast asleep and lying very peacefully. "Looks like waiting till morning, it do," he said. "And now I'll go back and keep my eye on that 'ere distinguished philanthropist." Williams disappeared, and Enid turned up the lamp again. Her face was pale and resolute. She motioned David towards a chair. "I'll tell you the story," she said. "I am going to confide in you the saddest and strangest tale that ever appealed to an imaginative novelist." CHAPTER XLIV ENID SPEAKS