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Ah! now my throat was aching with the memory of the song, and of that strange line I never understood "Wearing the ghost-ring!" and, of themselves, the words grew and died, formed on my silent lips: "This for the deed she did at Ashby Farms, Helen of Ormond, Royal Maid-at-Arms!
In silence I lifted her listless hands and kissed the fingers, then the cold wrists and palms. And I saw the faint circlet of the ghost-ring on her bridal finger, and touched it with my lips. Then, as I stepped past her, she gave a low cry, hiding her face in her hands, and leaned back against the wall, quivering from head to foot. "Don't go!" she sobbed. "Don't go don't go!"
"Who dat?" he cried. "How come dishyere ghost-ring roun' yo' weddin'-finger?" "I don't know," I said; "the chance pressure of a riding-glove, perhaps. It will fade away, Cato, this ghost-ring, as you call it.... Give me that rag o' lace; ... dust the powder away, Cato.... There, I'm smiling; can't you see, you rascal?... And tell Tulip she is right."
But they were clinging to me, limb and body, and I stood there, caressing them, eyes fixed on my cousin Dorothy, who had risen from her chair. She was very pale and quiet, and the hand she left in mine seemed lifeless as I bent to kiss it. But, upon the bridal finger, I saw the ghost-ring, a thin, rosy band, and I thrilled from head to foot with happiness unspeakable.
"Though for all time the lords of Ormond be Butlers to Majesty, Yet shall new honors fall upon her Who, armored, rode for love to Ashby Farms; Let this her title be: A Maid-at-Arms! "Serene mid love's alarms, For all time shall the Maids-at-Arms, Wearing the ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy. And sweetly conquer with a sigh And vanquish with a tear Captains a trembling world might fear.
Then in a flash the forgotten legend of the Maid-at-Arms came back to me, ringing through my ears in clamorous words: "Serene, 'mid love's alarms, For all time shall the Maids-at-Arms, Wearing the ghost-ring, triumph with their constancy!" I sprang to the door in my excitement and stared at the picture of the Maid-at-Arms.
But I saw them not; for before my eyes floated the vision of a slender hand, and on the wedding-finger I saw a faint, rosy circle, as I had seen it there a moment since, when Dorothy dropped her bare arms on the cloth and laid her head between them. So it was true; whether for good or ill my cousin wore the ghost-ring which for ages, Cato says, we Ormonds have worn before the marriage-ring.
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