"Your mother need not be told about it," she observed. "She wouldn't understand. She was in a while ago to say she hoped I'd be better in the morning. She is going to the city. What she came for was to ask me to lend her my ruby ring. She never understands why I can't lend it to her.

I told her she might have the string of pearls and the pearl brooch and the ring with the little diamonds and anything else except the ruby.

You see, I might die before she got back, and I couldn't die without the ruby ring on my finger. I promised somebody--I can't remember whom--"

"I know, dear, don't try to remember."

"Mary says it is shameful waste to leave it lying shut up in the box in my drawer. But it has to lie there. If I took it out now it would stop shining immediately. And it must be all red and bright when I die, like a shining star in the dark. Then, afterwards, you can have it, Esther.

You don't mind waiting, do you?"

"Gracious! I hope I'll be an old woman before then! So old that I shan't care for ruby rings at all."

Aunt Amy looked at the girl's pretty hand wistfully. "I'd like to give it to you right now, Esther. But you know how it is. I can't. If the red star did not shine I might lose my way. Some one told me--"

"I know, Auntie. I quite understand. And you have given me so many pretty things that I don't need the ruby."

"You may have anything else you want. But of course the ruby is the loveliest of all. If I could only remember who gave it to me--"

"Perhaps you always had it," suggested Esther, hastily, for she knew quite well the tragic history of the ruby.

"Perhaps. But I don't think so. I love it but I never dare to look at it. It makes the blackness come so near. Does it make you feel that way?"

"No--I don't know--large jewels often give people strange feelings they say."

"Do they?" hopefully. "Go and look at it now. Don't lift it out of the box. Just open the lid and look in. Perhaps you will feel something."

Esther went obediently to the drawer where the beautiful jewel had lain ever since Aunt Amy's arrival. As no one outside knew of its existence it was considered quite safe to keep it in the house. The box lay in a corner under a spotless pile of sweet smelling handkerchiefs. Esther snapped open the lid of the case and looked in. She looked close, closer still, bending over the open drawer--

"Do you feel anything, Esther?"

The girl's answer came, after a second's pause, in a strained voice.

"The drawer is so dark, I can't tell!"

"Take it to the window," said Aunt Amy.

Esther lifted the case from the drawer and carried it into a better light. Her eyes were panic-stricken. For her indecision had been only a ruse to give herself time to think. She had known the moment she opened the case that the ruby was gone!

"It does make me feel queer," she said, closing the case. "I'll put it away."

"Is it a black feeling?" with interest.

"I think it is."

"Then you are kin to it," said Aunt Amy sagely. "Your mother never has any feeling about it at all. Except that she would like to wear it. She was looking at it when she was in. She was as cross as possible when I told her she could not take it with her."

Esther gathered up the tea things without a word. Her curved mouth was set in a hard red line. At the door she paused and turning back as if upon impulse, said: "If it makes you feel like that, I would advise you not to look at it, Auntie. It will be quite safe. I'll see to that. I'll appoint myself 'Guardian of the Ring.'"

CHAPTER XI

Esther carried the tea-tray into the kitchen and stood for a moment beside the open window letting the sweet air from the garden cool the colour in her cheeks. Through the doorway into the hall she could see into the living room where Jane sat at the table in a little yellow pool of lamplight, busy with her school home work. Farther back, near the dusk of one of the veranda windows, Mrs. Coombe reclined in an easy chair. Her eyes were closed; in the half light she looked very pretty, very fragile; her relaxed pose suggested helplessness. Unconsciously Esther's innate strength answered to the call; her hard gaze softened.

To apply the terms liar and thief to that dainty figure in the chair seemed little short of brutality. Mary was weak, that was all--just weak!

At the sound of the girl's step in the doorway Mrs. Coombe opened her eyes. They were very filmy to-night, blank, contented. Her nervousness seemed to have left her. Perhaps she was half asleep, for she yawned, an open, ugly yawn, which she did not trouble to raise her hand to hide.

"I have decided to take Jane with me, Esther."

"I don't want to go," said Jane.

"Well, you are going--that's enough."

"If you have really decided to go," began Esther slowly, "I think you are wise to take Jane. We cannot tell yet just how Aunt Amy may be."

The child returned to her book with a discontented sigh. Esther came nearer and spoke in a lower tone. "But before you go," she said, "please don't forget to replace Aunt Amy's ring. If she were to find it gone it would be no joke but a serious shock, as I suppose you know."

Mrs. Coombe laughed. And Esther realised that a laugh was the last thing she had expected. For anger, evasion, denial, she had been prepared.

Mary would probably storm and bl.u.s.ter in her ineffective way--and return the ring. Instead--

"How did you know I had it?" she asked good humouredly.

"I saw that it was gone."

"And the deduction was obvious? Well, this time you are right. I did take it. I expect I have a right to borrow my own Aunt's things if she is too mean to lend them. It's a shame of her to want to keep the only decent jewel we have shut up. Amy gets more selfish every day."

"But you will put it back before she misses it?"

Mrs. Coombe could see her step-daughter's face quite plainly and its expression made her wince, but she was reckless to-night. After all, why pretend? If Esther intended to eternally interfere with her affairs the sooner an open break came, the better.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Certainly not until I return from my visit."

Esther fought down her rising dismay.

"Mother, don't you understand what you are doing? The ring is Aunt Amy's You have no right to take it!"

"I've a right if I choose to make one."

"If Auntie finds out it is not in its box, we cannot tell what the effect may be!"

"She needn't find out. What she doesn't know won't hurt her!"

"But--it is stealing!"

Mrs. Coombe laughed. "What a baby you are, Esther, for all your solemn eyes and grown-up airs. Stealing--the idea! Anyway you need not worry since you are not the thief." She yawned again, rose, and declared that she felt quite tired enough to go to bed.

When she had gone, Jane left her lessons and came to her sister's side.

"Esther, do I really have to go away with Mother?"