"It can't be done," she finally decided. "I'd just get in deeper and deeper, and—the first thing I knew I'd be——"
Then, like an inspiration, the solution came. It was perfectly simple, perfectly safe, the bishop should have his property within twenty-four hours, and nobody would be the wiser.
"Sure!" the girl reflected. "That does it. I'll tell her, I'll tell her the whole thing. She'll be sorry to know I'm that kind, but she'll be glad I'm on the level now, and—she'll keep my secret and—she can give back the purse."
With a sigh of relief Hester rose from the bench, and, drawing her cloak about her, started down the path. The thing was settled and there was no reason for delay. On the contrary, the sooner she found Miss Thompson and told her the truth the sooner this trouble would be ended, and she would be free to go away. A train to London, a call at the steamship agency—why, she might be on the ocean in two or three days, hurrying back to Rosalie! Not with a fortune, to be sure, but she knew that Rosalie would be happier to have her sister back and to hear the great news of her cutting out certain things, happier than if she brought ten fortunes—in the other way.
The girl stopped suddenly as she turned the point beyond the cove. There was the boat landing and the little footbridge leading to the summer house. And there, on a bench beyond the summer house, was Anton, the chauffeur, and she remembered, with a vague feeling of alarm, that he was waiting for her!
CHAPTER XXIII
A SCRAP OF PAPER
Since their strange meeting in Betty Thompson's chamber, the shock-headed chauffeur had made it plain to the pretty sewing-girl that he was deeply smitten with her charms. The fact that she had seen him in New York and remembered a gold tooth, also the injured ear of his friend with the blue handkerchief, amounted to nothing, for, after this single flash, her memory had failed her and, anyway, what if he had taken a glass of beer with Red Leary in a Forty-second street rathskeller!
The point was that Anton was now ardently and aggressively in love with Hester. Twice he had put his arm around her, once he had tried to kiss her, and daily he had urged her to meet him some evening at the garage for a joy ride. He had a sixty-horsepower car at his disposal during various odd hours and he saw no reason why pleasant reciprocity relations should not be established between himself and this alluring young woman.
"You're a peach, kid," he had whispered one afternoon in the conservatory; "you've got me going all kinds of ways with your eyes and your red lips and—say, come down to the garage after supper for a little whirl. Do you get me?"