"Yes?"
"Why don't you put it to the bishop?"
"Perhaps I will," said Betty, and, long after the curate had gone, she sat still at her desk, thinking. Nor could all her worries and perplexities silence the glad thought that very soon she would see the man whose voice had just thrilled her over the telephone, the man who, without knowing it, had made her suffer, and who now, without knowing it, had made her happy.
Following a sudden joyous impulse, Betty took a key from her bag and, opening the top drawer of her desk, drew out, with loving touch, a small book beautifully bound in dark green leather. It was a little volume of the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius. And her eyes fell upon one of her favorite marked passages:
"It is in thy power, whenever thou shalt choose, to retire into thyself. For nowhere, either with more quiet or freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind."
She pondered these comforting words, then, shyly, with a little gasp of pleasure, turned back to the flexible cover, where a flap of silk formed a thin pocket for some few sacred things, a picture of her mother, a faded and flat-pressed flower and four-leaf clover that once had been important, and, with these, the typewritten letter that Bob Baxter had dictated to her in this very room, the letter beginning "My dearest Betty" that she had shamefacedly saved from rumpled oblivion in the scrap basket, and ever since had treasured among her precious possessions.
Once again Betty read over this wonderful epistle, and she recalled all the nice loyal things Bob Baxter had said that day about his little pal of olden times. Did he mean them then? Had he forgotten them now? She sighed. He couldn't have meant them very much and be carrying on as he was with Kate Clendennin. Poor little pal of olden times!
And now a singular thing happened. As Betty looked fondly at the typewritten words she suddenly had an uncomfortable feeling that some one had entered the room and was looking at her. There had been neither sound nor word, but she knew that a person was standing there. And, glancing up, she saw Hester Storm at the half-open door of the mezzanine chamber, her dark eyes fixed on her benefactress in silent supplication.
"Oh!" cried Betty, in quick self-reproach.
Hester touched a warning finger to her lips and disappeared into the chamber. Whereupon Miss Thompson, dreading some new development, moved swiftly toward the little stair. On the way she stopped, in an impulse of kindness, and took up the tray of food.