Tommy, one day, roaming their streets (in which he was worth incredibly little), and thinking sadly of what could never be, saw the modest little garnet ring in a jeweller's window, and attached to it was a pathetic story.

No other person could have seen the story, but it was as plain to him as though it had been beautifully written on the tag of paper which really contained the price.

With his hand on the door he paused, overcome by that horror of entering shops without a lady to do the talking, which all men of genius feel (it is the one sure test), hurried away, came back, went to and fro shyly, until he saw that he was yielding once more to the indecision he thought he had so completely mastered, whereupon he entered bravely (though it was one of those detestable doors that ring a bell as they open), and sternly ordered the jeweller, who could have bought and sold our Tommy with one slap on the trouser leg, to hand the ring over to him.
He had no intention of giving it to Grizel.

That, indeed, was part of its great tragedy, for this is the story Tommy read into the ring: There was once a sorrowful man of twenty-three, and forty, and sixty.
Ah, how gray the beard has grown as we speak! How thin the locks! But still we know him for the same by that garnet ring.

Since it became his no other eye has seen it, and yet it is her engagement ring.