When the Stone Turned Red Then
Ill-Fate Befell Its Owner
IT WAS set in a ring of plain gold—a magnificent stone of at least five carats—and Wesslyn had worn it on his little finger for many years.
There was a curious legend about it, handed down through generations in the family of the Hindoo prince from whom he had won it at cards one night in Calcutta—a legend to the effect that the stone would turn red as a ruby were ill-fate likely to befall its owner, thus warning him, that he might take steps to protect himself and modify his destiny.
The time had been when Wesslyn and I were friends. That was in the East Indian campaign, and after, when he was a young captain of her Majesty the Queen, and I a lieutenant-colonel.
But with the passage of years the love of a girl had come between us, and I was now his bitterest enemy, though I still professed friendship.
I shall call the girl Cynthia. She was the daughter of one of the officers at the American embassy in London, and our military standing brought us in touch with her socially. She was charming and gracious, and we both fell in love with her. But Wesslyn, being younger, won her—and he placed on her finger, as a sign of troth, the orange opal. They were to be married in the fall. That was in 1914.
Then came the war, and Wesslyn was commissioned a colonel for service.
I, too, was summoned, but being older, and a trifle out of shape, was shelved.
Oh, but I fumed! To no avail, however. They were doubly strict. Kitchener had come to the front, and he was all for fitness. So I stayed behind, and Wesslyn went.
Before going he came to Cynthia and asked her for the ring. It would be well to have it with him, he said, to ward off danger in the trenches. He would give her another, instead.
But she was haughty and proud. She laughed. She asked him if he believed the silly legend connected with it. He had given it to her, she argued, and now she was going to keep it. If he insisted upon having it back, however, he could have her promise, too.
So he said no more and went without it, and she continued to wear on her engagement finger that glittering orange stone.
When I heard he had yielded to her whim, I gloated. Knowing the ways of the Hindoo even better than he, and the curious trait their legends have of coming true, I was filled with satisfaction. Not only should I be even with him for his high-handed and insolent, courtship of Cynthia, but I should have her as well—for
now he would be without the means
