Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/331



ASTON awoke next morning at half past ten o'clock with a dull headache, and a sense of hopeless depression. His anger had cooled and left him the pitiful consciousness of his loss. He slowly and mechanically dressed.

When he buttoned his coat he felt something hard press against his heart. It was the ring. He sat down on his bed and drew it from his pocket. To his surprise he found coiled inside it and tied by a tiny ribbon a ringlet of her hair. She had taken off the ring in her mother's presence and promised her to register and mail it in Atlanta. She had bound this little piece of herself with it. He kissed it tenderly.

"My God, it is hard!" he groaned. And all the unshed tears that his eager interest in her presence and his kindling anger the night before had kept back now blinded him.

He did not notice his door softly open, nor know his mother was near until she placed her hand gently on his shoulder. He looked up at her face full of tender sympathy, and poured out to her his trouble in a torrent of hot rebellious words.

"What have I done to be treated like a dog in this way?" he ended with a voice trembling with protest.

"Perhaps you have offended the General in some way?"