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“What’s the matter? I beseech you …”

She yielded to a fit of mad despair:

“This is the matter, that I am lost!… This is the matter, that I can’t get the ring off! It has grown too small for me!… Do you understand?… It made no difference and I did not give it a thought…. But to-day … this proof … this accusation…. Oh, what torture!… Look … it forms part of my finger … it has grown into my flesh … and I can’t … I can’t….”

She pulled at the ring, vainly, with all her might, at the risk of injuring herself. But the flesh swelled up around the ring; and the ring did not budge.

“Oh!” she cried, seized with an idea that terrified her. “I remember … the other night … a nightmare I had…. It seemed to me that some one entered my room and caught hold of my hand…. And I could not wake up…. It was he! It was he! He had put me to sleep, I was sure of it … and he was looking at the ring…. And presently he will pull it off before his mother’s eyes…. Ah, I understand everything: that working jeweller!… He will cut it from my hand to-morrow…. You see, you see…. I am lost!…”