Sandys turned to Miss. Crampton.
"It's too large for you. It's large enough for me. May I try it on?"
I hastened towards him. The prospect of what might immediately ensue spurred me to inarticulate speech.
"Don't! For God's sake, don't! Give that ring to me, sir!"
They stared at me, as well they might. My sudden and, to them, meaningless agitation was a bolt from the blue. Young Sandys withdrew from me the hand which held the ring.
"Give it to you?—why?—is it, yours?"
As I confronted the young fellow's smiling countenance, I felt myself to be incapable, on the instant, of arranging my thoughts in sufficient order to enable me to give them adequate expression. I appealed for help to Crampton.
"Crampton, request Mr. Sandys to give me that ring. I implore you to do as I ask you. Any explanation which you may require, I will give you afterwards."
Crampton looked at me, open-mouthed, in silence. He never was quick-witted. My excitement seemed to amuse his daughter.
"What is the matter with you, Mr. Benham?" She turned to her lover. "Charlie, do let me see this marvellous ring."
I renewed my appeal to her father.
"Crampton, by all that you hold dear, I entreat you not to allow your daughter to put that ring upon her finger."
Crampton assumed a judicial air—or what he intended for such.
"Since Benham appears to be so very much in earnest—though I confess that I don't know what there is about the ring to make a fuss for—perhaps, Lilian, by way of a compromise, you will give the ring to me."
"One moment, papa: I think that, as Charley says, it is too large for me."
I dashed forward. Mr. Sandys, mistaking my purpose, or, possibly, supposing I was mad, interposed; and, in doing so, killed the girl he was about to marry. Before I could do anything to prevent her, she had slipped the ring upon her finger. She held out her hand for us to see.
"It is too large for me—look."
She touched the ring with the fingers of her other hand. In doing so, no doubt, unconsciously, she pressed the cameo. A startled look came on her face. She gazed about her with a bewildered air. And she cried, in a tone of voice which, long afterwards, was ringing in my ears.
"Mamma!"
Ere we could reach her, she had fallen to the ground. We bent over her, all three of us, by this time, sufficiently in earnest. She lay on her back, her right hand above her head; her left, on one of the fingers of which was the ring, resting lightly on her breast. There was the expression of something like a smile upon her face, and she looked as if she slept. But she was dead.
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Between the Dark and the Daylight Page 22