Then forth from her pocket Catherine drew a ring, and it flashed green with a great emerald, and particoloured with brilliants, before my eyes, and I was well-nigh overcome by the sight of that and everything turned black before me, for it was my Lord Robert Ealing's great ring of exceeding value, for the theft of which I had been transported. Straightway Catherine saw that it was too much for me, for she knelt down beside me and called John to give her a flask of sweet waters which stood on the table, and began bathing my forehead, the while my brother looked on with something of a jealous frown. "'Twas thoughtless of me, Harry," she whispered, "but they say joy does not kill, and--and--dost thou know the ring?" I nodded. It seemed to me that no jewels could ever be mined which I would know as I knew that green star of emerald and those encircling brilliants. That ring I knew to my cost. "My Lord Ealing is dead," she said, "and thou knowest that he was a kinsman of the Chelmsfords, and after his funeral came this ring and a letter, and--and--thou art cleared, Harry. And--and--now I know why thou didst what thou did, Harry, 'twas--'twas--to shield me." With that she burst into a great flood of tears, even throwing herself upon the floor of my cell in all her slim length, and not letting my brother John raise her, though he strove to do so. "'Tis here, 'tis here I belong, John," she cried out wildly, "for you know not, you know not what injustice I have done this innocent man. Never can I make it good with my life." It is here that I shall stop the course of my story to explain the whole matter of the ring, which at the time I was too weak and spent with pain to comprehend fully as Catherine Cavendish related it. It was a curious and at the same time a simple tale, as such tales are wont to be, and its very simplicity made it seem then, and seem now, well-nigh incredible. For it is the simple things of this world which are always most unbelievable, perhaps for this reason: that men after Eden and the Serpent, expect some subtlety of reasoning to account for all happenings, and always comes the suspicion that somewhat beside two and two go to make four.