Straightway Catherine saw that it was too much for me, for she knelt down beside me and called John to give her a flask of sweet waters which stood on the table, and began bathing my forehead, the while my brother looked on with something of a jealous frown.

“’Twas thoughtless of me, Harry,” she whispered, “but they say joy does not kill, and—­and—­dost thou know the ring?”

I nodded.  It seemed to me that no jewels could ever be mined which I would know as I knew that green star of emerald and those encircling brilliants.  That ring I knew to my cost.

“My Lord Ealing is dead,” she said, “and thou knowest that he was a kinsman of the Chelmsfords, and after his funeral came this ring and a letter, and—­and—­thou art cleared, Harry.  And—­and—­now I know why thou didst what thou did, Harry, ’twas—­’twas—­to shield me.”  With that she burst into a great flood of tears, even throwing herself upon the floor of my cell in all her slim length, and not letting my brother John raise her, though he strove to do so.

“’Tis here, ’tis here I belong, John,” she cried out wildly, “for you know not, you know not what injustice I have done this innocent man.  Never can I make it good with my life.”

It is here that I shall stop the course of my story to explain the whole matter of the ring, which at the time I was too weak and spent with pain to comprehend fully as Catherine Cavendish related it.  It was a curious and at the same time a simple tale, as such tales are wont to be, and its very simplicity made it seem then, and seem now, well-nigh incredible.  For it is the simple things of this world which are always most unbelievable, perhaps for this reason:  that men after Eden and the Serpent, expect some subtlety of reasoning to account for all happenings, and always comes the suspicion that somewhat beside two and two go to make four.

My Lord Robert Ealing who had come to the ball at Cavendish Court that long last year, was a distant kinsman of our family, and unwedded, but a man who went through the world with a silly leer of willingness toward all womenkind.  And ’twas this very trait, perhaps, which accounted for his remaining unwedded, although a lord, though the fact that his estates were incumbered may have had somewhat to do with it.  Be that as it may, he lived alone, except for a few old servants, and was turned sixty, when, long after my transportation, he wedded his cook, who gave him three daughters and one son, to whom the estate went, but the ring and the letter came to the Chelmsfords.  The letter, which I afterwards saw, was a most curious thing, both as to composition and spelling and chirography, for his lordship was no scholar.  And since the letter is but short, I may perhaps as well give it entire.  After this wise it ran, being addressed to Col.  John Chelmsford, who was his cousin, though considerably younger.