I retained it for a moment, then released it.

Her arm fell inert by her side, but mine tingled to the shoulder.
"And one more thing," I said, while this strange and curious reluctance to let her go was now steadily invading me.
"Yes ?" "Will you wear a comrade's token--in memory of an hour or two with him ?" "What!" She spoke with a quick intake of breath and her grey eyes were on me now, piercing me to the roots of speech and motive.
I wore a heavy ring beaten out of gold; Guy Johnson gave it.

This I took from my trembling finger, scarce knowing why I was doing it at all, and stooping and lifting her little, wind-roughened hand, put it on the first finger I encountered--blindly, now, and clumsily past all belief, my hand was shaking so absurdly.
If my face were now as red as it was hot, hers, on the contrary, had become very strange and still and white.

For a moment I seemed to read distrust, scorn, even hatred, in her level stare, and something of fear, too, in every quickening breath that moved the scarlet mantle on her breast.

Then, in a flash, she had turned her back on me and was standing there in the grey dawn, with both hands over her face, straight and still as a young pine.