Explore "A Ring of Rubies" by L.T. Meade on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Cousin Geoffrey had sealed his letter with red wax. He had stamped the seal with his own signet-ring, which gave the impress of a coat-of-arms with a quaint device. That device became a household word with me by and by, but I was too impatient even to trouble myself to decipher it just then. I spread the thick sheets of paper before me, and gave myself up to the luxury of satisfying the most burning curiosity which surely ever besieged a girl.
Cousin Geoffrey's letter -- a letter addressed to myself, well and carefully written -- was far too long to make it possible for me to quote it here. I read it once, twice, three times. Then I sat with my hands before me, the open sheets of paper lying on my lap, my eyes fixed on vacancy. Two or three candles were lighted in my room; one by one they burnt low in the socket, and expired. I was in the dark, not mentally but physically. There was no darkness in my mental vision that night; my mind was so active that my body was incapable of feeling either fatigue or cold, and my eyes were incapable of noticing the thick darkness which surrounded them.