and he was longing to take it all at a bound.
Poor girl! and she lay there under his eyes all unmindful of his conflict or of the fact that her fate as well as his was trembling in the balance; unmindful, though her dreams were far from joyous--or why the tear welling from between her lashes as he gazed.
She was alone in the house; he knew it by the complete silence.

He could look and look and study her every feature, without fear of interruption; wait for her waking and be ready to meet her first glance of tender astonishment which might restore him to his better self.
Drawing up a chair, he sat down; then started upright again with dilating eyes and a strange shadow on his brow.

One of her arms lay uppermost and on the hand--almost as fine as Lucie's, but not quite,--he saw the ring--his ring, and it hung loosely.

The poor child was growing thin, very thin.

"If she were to hold her hand downward," he muttered to himself, "I believe that ring would fall off." Did some stray glimpse of his own features, wearing a look never seen on them before, confront him from some near-by mirror that he started so guiltily as this heart murmur rose to his lips?
Or was it at a thought, hideous but tempting, which held him, gained upon him and soon absolutely possessed him, till his own hand went out stealthily and with hesitations toward those helpless fingers of hers, now approaching, now withdrawing, and now approaching them again but not touching them, great as his impulse was to do so, for fear she should wake, while yet the devil gripped his arm and lit up baleful fires in his eyes.
He had remembered those words of hers: "Have you ever thought that with the exception of this ring no proof exists in all the world of our ever having been married ?" Remember them?
He had not remembered them; he had heard them, sounding and resounding in his ears till the whole room seemed to palpitate with them.