he doesn't know--but why--"

"At first I couldn't speak. I tried, but I couldn't. Then he had to take
Hoyle North, and I thought he would see for himself when he came
back--or I could tell him by that time. Then came that dreadful
news--you know--four, all dead. His brother and his two cousins all
killed, and his uncle dying of grief; and he had to go to his mother or
she might die, too, and then he found so much to do. Now, you know he
has to be a--"

She was going to say "a lord," but, happening to glance down at her open
book, the name of "Lord Steyne" caught her eye, and it seemed to her a
title of disgrace. She must talk with David before she allowed him to be
known as "a lord," so she ended hurriedly: "He has to be a different
kind of a man, now--not a doctor. He has a great many things to do and
look after. If I told him, he would leave everything and come to me,
even if he ought not, and if he couldn't come, he would be troubled and
unhappy. Why should I make him unhappy? When he does come home, he'll be
glad--oh, so glad! Why need he know when the knowing will do no good,
and when he will come to me as soon as he can, anyway?"

"You strange girl, Cassandra! You brave old dear! But he must come,
that's all. It is his right to know and to come. I can tell him. Let
me."

"No, no. Please, Mrs. Towers, you must not. He will come back as soon as
he can; and now--now--he will be too late, since he--he did not sail
when he meant to."

Betty rose with a set look about the mouth. "Unless we cable him,
Cassandra. Would there be time in that case? Come, you must tell me."

"No, no," wailed the girl. "And now he must not know until he comes. It
would be cruel. I will not let you write him or cable him either."

"Then what will you do?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll think out a way. You'll help me think, but you
must promise me not to write to David. I send him a letter every day,
but I never tell him anything that would make him uneasy, because he
has very important business there for his mother and sister, even more
than for himself. You see how bad I would be to write troubling things
to him when he couldn't help me or come to me." A light broke over Betty
Towers's face.

"I can think out a way, dear, of course I can. Just leave matters to
me."

Thus it was that Doctor Hoyle received a letter in Betty's own
impassioned and impulsive style, begging him, for love's sake, to leave
all and come back to the mountains a