Her Faithful Knight — page 270: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 His Liege Lady. pended, it seemed to each perfectly natural and fitting that they should be together in close and restful friend- ship, friendship so complete that they could talk together or keep silence as it best pleased them. “TI suppose,” he said presently, as, laden with parcels, they drove to a trunkmaker’s shop to choose a portman- teau for “Mrs. Ransome,” “I suppose I have gone shop- ping with you in my dreams. For I have all the while a consciousness that we have done all this before, and that it is absolutely natural that we should be here together. Does it strike you like that?” “I feel we were meant to be friends,” she said more guardedly. “I can’t talk much now. The whole thing has been such a strange rush. I can’t tell you how grate- full am to you. I am glad I have met a man at last who is good and honorable. I began to think all men were evil, after knowing Darcy Derrick.” He longed to ask whether her husband, Sergius Tre- velyan, was among the sheep or the goats, but felt he must not venture upon such a leading question yet. “There is one thing more,” he said at last, “which must certainly be worn by Mrs. Ransome. Pardon me for no- ticing it, but you do not wear your wedding ring. Will it not be better to do so?” “T threw it down a railroad embankment months ago,” she answered truthfully. <A thrill of quite unwarrantable satisfaction passed through Aylmer at the news. Then he said, trying to speak in a hard, business-like manner: “We must buy another. My aunt would in- stantly notice such an omission.” A sudden wave of nervous self-consciousness swept over Dorothy, and the color came and went in her cheeks as she presently stood by Aylmer’s side in a jeweler’s shop in Baker street, and held out her finger to be measured for the wedding ring by the smiling shop assistant. To COMME IOOKS (©)