WEDDING RING
" 'It was a sign,' she said.
" 'A sign?' I asked.
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"'A sign that we cannot escape, that we-' and she interrupted
herself, to resume, whispering fiercely in the dark, 'I do not want
to escape-it is a sign-whatever I have done is done.' She grew
quiet for a moment, then she said, 'Give me your hand.'
"I gave her my right hand. She grasped it, dropped it, and said,
'The other, the other hand.'
"I held it out, across my own body, for I was sitting on her left.
She seized it with her own left hand, bringing her hand upward from
below to press my hand flat against her bosom. Then, fumblingly, she
slipped a ring upon my finger, the finger next to the smallest.
" 'What is that?' I asked.
" 'A ring,' she answered, paused, and added, 'It is
his
ring.'
"Then I recalled that he, my friend, had always worn a wedding
ring, and I felt the metal cold upon my flesh. 'Did you take it off of
his finger?' I asked, and the thought shook me.
" 'No,' she said.
" 'No?' I questioned.
" 'No,' she said, 'he took it off. It was the only time he ever took
it off.'
"I sat beside her, waiting for what, I did not know, while she
held my hand pressed against her bosom. I could feel it rise and fall.
I could say nothing.
"Then she said, 'Do you want to know how-how he took it off?'
"'Yes,' I said in the dark, and waiting for her to speak, I moved
my tongue out upon my dry lips.
" 'Listen,' she commanded me in an imperious whisper, 'that
evening after-after it happened-after the house was quiet again, I
sat in my room, in the little chair by the dressing table, where I always
sit for Phebe to let down my hair. I had sat there out of habit, I sup–
pose, for I was numb all over. I watched Phebe preparing the bed for
the night.' (Phebe was her waiting maid, a comely yellow wench some–
what given to the fits and sulls.) 'I saw Phebe remove the bolster and
then look down at a spot where the bolster had lain, on my side of the
bed. She picked something up and came toward me. She stared at me
-and her eyes, they are yellow, you look into them and you can't see
what is in them-she stared at me-a long time-and then she held
out her hand, clenched shut and she watched me-and then-slow,
so slow--she opened up the fingers- and there lay the ring on the
palm of her hand-and I knew it was his ring but all I thought was,
