e."

"Is the place beautiful?"

"There is a fine deer park, and the gardens were wonderful a long time
ago. The house is worth looking at--outside."

"I will go and look at it," said Betty.

"The carriage is out of order. There is only Ughtred's cart."

"I am a good walker," said Betty.

"Are you? It would be twelve miles--there and back. When I was in New
York people didn't walk much, particularly girls."

"They do now," Betty answered. "They have learned to do it in England.
They live out of doors and play games. They have grown athletic and
tall."

As they talked the nightingales sang, sometimes near, sometimes in the
distance, and scents of dewy grass and leaves and earth were wafted
towards them. Sometimes they strolled up and down the terrace, sometimes
they paused and leaned against the stone balustrade. Betty allowed Rosy
to talk as she chose. She herself asked no obviously leading questions
and passed over trying moments with lightness. Her desire was to place
herself in a position where she might hear the things which would aid
her to draw conclusions. Lady Anstruthers gradually grew less nervous
and afraid of her subjects. In the wonder of the luxury of talking to
someone who listened with sympathy, she once or twice almost forgot
herself and made revelations she had not intended to make. She had often
the manner of a person who was afraid of being overheard; sometimes,
even when she was making speeches quite simple in themselves, her voice
dropped and she glanced furtively aside as if there were chances that
something she dreaded might step out of the shadow.

When they went upstairs together and parted for the night, the clinging
of Rosy's embrace was for a moment almost convulsive. But she tried to
laugh off its suggestion of intensity.

"I held you tight so that I could feel sure that you were real and would
not melt away," she said. "I hope you will be here in the morning."

"I shall never really go quite away again, now I have come," Betty
answered. "It is not only your house I have come into. I have come back
into your life."

After she had entered her room and locked the door she sat down and
wrote a letter to her father. It was a long letter, but a clear one.
She painted a definite and detailed picture and made distinct her chief
point.

"She is afraid of me," she wrote. "That is the first and worst obstacle.
She is actually afraid that I will do something which will only add to
her