The Ring by Danielle Steel Page A

She returned to her room then, thinking of Max and the lonely journey he was about to undertake. She still remembered little Sarah, a tiny woman with dark, laughing eyes. She had been so full of funny stories, and she had been kind to Ariana whenever they met. It all seemed so long ago now. Ariana had often thought of her over the past three years, wondering where she was and what they had done to her ' and the boys ' Now they knew.
    They were the same thoughts Max was thinking as he lay quietly on the pink satin-covered chaise longue in the room of the woman he had seen only once when he first met Walmar. She had been a dazzling woman with golden, almost copper-colored hair. He had thought her the most striking vision of his lifetime. And shortly after, he had learned that she was dead. Of flu, they had told him. But as he lay there, he sensed that there had been some other reason for her death. Some odd feeling had communicated itself from Walmar, as though he knew, as though he, too, had suffered at the Nazis' hands. It didn't seem possible, but one never knew.
    In his own room Walmar stood looking out at the lake in the moonlight, but it was not the lake he saw there, it was his wife. Golden, shining, beautiful Kassandra ' the woman he had loved so desperately so long ago ' the dreams they had shared in that room. And now it was empty, solemn, draped, forgotten. It had torn a part of him away that night, crossing that doorway with the man they were hiding, and Ariana with those same bottomless lavender-blue eyes. He turned away from the moonlight in sorrow, and at last he undressed and went to bed.
    Did you ask him? Frau Klemmer asked her after breakfast when they met in the hall.
    About what? Ariana had other things on her mind.
    The room. Your mother's apartment What a strange girl she was, so distant, so withdrawn at times had she already forgotten? Frau Klemmer ofter wondered what mysteries lay behind the deep blue eyes.
    Oh, that ' yes. ' I mean no. He said no.
    Was he angry?
    No, Just very definite. I guess I'll just stay where I am.
    Why don't you push him a little? Maybe he'll think about it some more and give in.
    But Ariana shook her head with determination. He has enough on his mind.
    The housekeeper shrugged and moved on. Sometimes it was hard to understand the girl, but then again, her mother had been strange, too.
    When Ariana left for school that morning, Walmar had already left the house in his Rolls. She had wanted to spend the day at home in case, because of Max but her father had insisted that she go on with her life as always, and to be sure of Max's protection, Walmar had himself relocked Kassandra's door.
    It seemed hours before she could get back there, but at last it was time to go home. She had sat in school all day, distracted, thinking of Max and wondering how he was. Poor man, how strange it must feel to him, to be a captive in someone's house. With a calm step, Ariana walked down the main hallway, greeted Berthold, and went upstairs. She declined Anna's offer of tea and went into her bathroom to comb her hair. It was another fifteen minutes before she dared walk back downstairs to the next floor. She paused for a moment at the door of her father's bedroom and then glided past it with the key she had borrowed from Frau Klemmer only two days before.
    The door opened easily as she turned the key and then the handle, and she slipped quietly inside and disappeared. On silent feet she ran through the bedroom, soundless, breathless, and then she stood there, in the doorway, a smiling vision in front of the tired, unshaven Max.
    Hello. It was barely a whisper.
    He smiled and invited her to sit down. Have you eaten? He shook his head. I thought so. Here. She had brought him a sandwich hidden in the deep pocket of her skirt. I'll bring you some milk later. That morning she had left him a pitcher of water They had told him not to run the taps. The pipes would be too rusty after so many years, and they