The tears wet her hands and the brown paper, and fell down to the greasy marble floor of the shop.
"It will grow again very soon," said the barber, not unkindly.

He supposed, naturally enough, that she was weeping over her sacrifice.
"Oh no! It is not that!" she cried.

"I am so--so happy to have kept this!" Then, without another word, she slipped noiselessly out into the street, clasping the precious relic to her breast..