-not only that--

"Yes; I mean it--mean it," said her lips. "Of course! Foolish boy! I
have long meant it--"

"Long?" he cried.

"You heard what the Russian woman said--"

"About there being some one? Then it was--"

"Guess." The sweet laughing lips were close; his swept them
passionately. He found the answer; the world seemed to go round.

But later, that night, there was no joy on Mr. Heatherbloom's face. In
his room in the old negro woman's house, he indited a letter. It was
brought to Betty Dalrymple the next morning as the early sunshine
entered her chamber overlooking the governor's park.

"Darling: Forgive me. I am sailing at dawn on the old tub, for South
America--"

Here the note fell from the girl's hand. Long she looked out of the
window. Then she went back to the bit of paper, took it and held it
against her breast before she again read. She seemed to know now what
would be in it; the strange depression that had come over her after he
had left last night was accounted for. Of course, he would not go back
to New York with her; he would, or could, accept nothing, in the way she
wished, from her or her aunt. It was necessary for him still to be Mr.
Heatherbloom; he had not yet "found himself" fully; the beginning he had
spoken of was only begun. The influential friends of his father in the
financial world had become impossible aids; he had to continue as he had
planned, to go his own way, and his, alone. It would have been easy for
him, as his father's son and the prospective nephew of the influential
Miss Van Rolsen, to have obtained one of those large salaried positions,
or "sinecures", with little to do. But that would be only beginning at
the end once more.

Again she essayed to read. The letter would have been a little
incomprehensible to any one except herself, but she understood. There
were three "darlings"; inexcusable tautology! She kissed them all, but
she kissed oftenest the end: "You will forgive me for forgetting
myself--God knows I didn't intend to--and you will wait; have faith? It
is much to ask--too much; but if you will, I think my father's son and
he whom you have honored by caring for, may yet prove a little worthy--"

The words brought a sob to her throat; she threw herself back on the
bed. "A little?" she cried, still holding the note tight in her hand.
But after a spell of weeping, once more she got up and looked out of the
window. The sunshine was very bright, the birds sang