ng a fragment
of a wall."

He climbed into the coach and was about to give the word to start again,
when Betty spoke up, hesitatingly, pleadingly but emphatically:--

"Please wait a moment. I want to see it."

I followed Betty when she got out of the coach, and, as we approached the
shrine, she exclaimed: "Doctor Lilly was right! There is no snow on the
shrine. The Virgin protects it. There must be a relic beneath the
stones!"

We climbed a little hillock and after standing before the shrine for a
moment, Betty said, "Please return to the coach and leave me alone."

"Why, Betty?" I asked. "You may speak plainly to me. I think I know your
motive."

"I want to offer a little prayer to the Virgin here at her broken
shrine--a prayer for your cousin and for you--and for me."

I knelt with her, and after Betty had finished her simple invocation, we
rose, and I, who at another time would have laughed at the prayer, felt
the thrill of her whispered words lingering in my heart. I seemed to know
that we should rescue Frances, and I also knew that my love for Bettina
would bring me nothing but joy, softened and sanctified by sadness, and
to her nothing of evil save the pain of a gentle longing.

Betty felt as I did, for when she rose she said, "Now we shall find
Mistress Jennings, and, Baron Ned, I shall fear you no more."

"Have you feared me?" I asked, touched to the quick by her artless
candor.

"Yes," she answered, sighing. "Though I have feared myself more. You
are so far above me in every way that it is no wonder I am bewildered
when you say--say--that you--. You know what I mean."

"Yes, Betty," I answered quickly, feeling that she had more to say.

"I was bewildered in my parlor at the Old Swan to-day," she said, hanging
her head. "Your opinion of me must have fallen."

"No, no, I understood, Betty, I understood, and I dare not tell you how
much my opinion has risen because I would say more than would be good for
you or for me," I answered reassuringly.

"But you must remember that a girl has impulses and yearnings at times,
and she should not be too harshly blamed if she sometimes fails to beat
them down. But now it will all be different. The Blessed Virgin will help
us, and our conflict is over."

Betty and I started back to the coach, both feeling the uplift of
our answered prayer. Probably we were the only devotees that had knelt
before the shrine in hundreds of years, and the Virgin had heard our
su