The childishness of the speech went to Allan’s heart.  He was conscious of keeping a very tight rein on himself as he answered, “Do not say that.  I can understand a little of what you must feel.  But does it mean that I may speak now and tell you that only a few weeks ago I first learned the cruel, the unwarranted, charge against your father?  I had not understood before.”

Celia lifted her hand as if to ward off a blow, but she did not speak.

Allan continued, “My silence must have seemed like a consent to it.  And now, can we not meet, if only for a few minutes, on common ground?  Must we be enemies because—­”

“Not enemies—­oh, no,” Celia said, looking toward the door as if she wished to end the interview.

“Then—­you will think me very insistent—­but there is something I must explain to you.  First, won’t you let me give you a chair?”

“Thank you, I’ll stand,” Celia answered; she moved, however, to a table and leaned against it.

“It is about the ring.  You perhaps remember the wording of the will?  Before I left home to go abroad, so long ago, when I bade good-by to old Mr. Gilpin, he said to me, with that odd chuckle of his, ’Allan, I want Celia to have the ring when I die,’ I replied that I hoped he would leave it to you in his will.  Again, as I was leaving him, he called after me, ‘Remember, Celia is to have the ring,’ It escaped my mind until I heard of the will, then of course I remembered.  I think he had a feeling that if he left it to anybody it should be to a member of our family, and yet he wished you to have it.  Now we both know what the old man had in mind; but, although things have changed between us since then, the fact remains that the ring is yours.”  Allan took the little worn case from his breast pocket and held it out.

Celia looked at his extended hand, and shook her head.  “I cannot take it,” she said.

“But it does not belong to me; you must take it.  You put me in an awkward position by refusing.”

Celia’s eyes flashed.  “And how about my position if I should take it?  Has not all Friendship been speculating about the meaning of the Gilpin will?  Is not everybody wondering what you are going to do with it?  What—­” She paused, clearly unable to keep her voice steady.

She seemed about to hurry away when Allan intercepted her.  “Forgive me—­wait—­just a moment.  I see now.  I was unpardonably stupid.  I am not in the habit of considering what people say or may think, but I can see it would not do.  I seem to be always annoying you,” he concluded helplessly.

A faint smile dawned on Celia’s face.  “No one can help it; it is just an awkward situation,” she said, and left him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH.

QUESTIONS.

“They asked one another the reason.”

Although the auction was over, the air of Friendship still vibrated from the stir.  Bereft of its treasures, the Gilpin house stood an empty shell, facing an unknown future; for beyond the statement that he was from Baltimore, nothing was known of its purchaser.