But there is one thing that Betty
Ashton has never yet explained to my satisfaction or anybody else's, and
I don't see why she should not do it now. Will you please tell me,
Betty, whatever induced you to start off on such a journey by yourself?
You must have known that the walk would take you several hours at least,
even if nothing unforeseen had happened. Surely you had sense enough to
know that your wandering around in a strange woods alone without
anyone's knowing where you were would not be safe at any time or place.
What made you do it?"

Betty bit her lips. It was true that she and Polly had never failed in
the past in being absolutely honest with each other, nor had she ever
hesitated to ask of Polly anything that she herself desired to know. Yet
it was hardly fair that she should be asked this particular question
before a comparative stranger. It had been difficult enough to make Dick
and Esther accept her explanation as a reasonable one after several days
of discussion. So what should she now answer Polly? For her friend's
eyes were upon her with that queer searching gaze they sometimes wore,
and her high cheek bones were flushed with determination--and something
else.

"Answer me," Polly repeated firmly.

"Why, I thought I told you the other morning," Betty returned meekly. "I
had no very special reason for taking the walk. I was just nervous and
restless and kind of worried and all of a sudden as I started for home,
why it seemed to me that I could not bear to go indoors so soon. And
then I thought of the beautiful woods where we were together a while ago
and I believed that if I could rest there for a little I should be----"

"Be what, Betty Ashton?" Polly demanded almost savagely. And then she
shook her head sagely and with her arms about her knees relapsed into
her old habit of rocking herself thoughtfully back and forth. "You need
not try to explain anything further to me or to any one else for that
matter. Your explanations are too absurd. Because if you don't know
yourself what is the trouble with you, Esther and I both do. You are
falling in love. You have not been like yourself for weeks! Why do you
suppose that just now when I asked you a simple question that you should
hesitate and flush? You went to that same old place in the forest alone
just because you wanted to think about----"

But the Princess was now getting up from her place on the sofa and the
other girl understood perfectly well her