“Don’t do that, Anna,” he said.

“Is it any harm, papa?”

“Your mother died sitting in that chair; her hands spread the shawl over it; it was the last work they did, Anna; it has never since been taken off.”

I dropped the fringe; my touch seemed sacrilegious.

Near the chair was a small cabinet; it looked like an altar, or would have done so, had my father been a devotee to any religion requiring visible sacrifice.  He opened it.

“Come hither, Anna,”—­and I went.

Long, luxuriant bands of softly purplish hair lay within, upon the place of sacrifice.

“Sophie’s is like this,” I said.

“And Sophie wears one like unto this,” said my father; and he took up a circlet of shining gold that lay among the tresses.  “Sophie’s marriage-ring was hallowed unto her.  I gave it the morning she went out from me.”  He uttered these words with slow reverence of voice.

Why did self come up?

“You gave Sophie our mother’s marriage-ring,” I said, “and I”—­

“Shall wear this,” said my father.  “I laid it here, with hers;” and he gently lifted the sacred hair, and, freeing the ring, put it upon my finger.

“This is not my marriage-day,” I said.  “Papa, I don’t want it.  Besides, gentlemen don’t wear marriage-rings:  how came you to?”

“Perhaps I have not worn this one; but will you wear it to please me?”

“Why will it please you?  It is not symbolical, is it?”

“It makes you doubly mine,” he said; and he led me back to outside life, with this strange sort of marriage-ring circling with its planet weight around my finger.

Did my father mean to keep me forever?  And with the question came an answer that left sweet contentment in its pathway; it accorded with the intent of my heart.

“Father, have you made me your friend?” I asked, in the room that was terribly tossed, as I restored to place chairs that seemed to have been in a deplorably long dance, and to have forgotten their home at its close.

“You wear my ring, you have come into my orbit,” he answered.

“That being true, I am as much interested in the flying comet in there as you are,—­for if it strikes you, it hurts me;” and I waited his answer.

After a moment of pause, it came.

“My poor patient is very ill; his life will burn out, if the fever is not stayed;” and as the frenzied laugh reached us, Dr. Percival forgot my presence; he passed his hand slowly across his brow, as if to retouch memory, and then taking down a volume, he began to read.  I waited long.  At last he closed the book suddenly, said to himself, “I’ll try it,” and in half a moment my father’s white hairs were separated from me by the impassable barrier of the sick-room.