Between the outer world of bush and the house was a slip of ground called the banana grove, and known in story to both boy and girl, as the play-place of their mother.
Cyril followed Betty through this grove, trying to make up his mind as he went, whether to go or stay. To stay and take his part in the proceedings; to do and be bold—as an inner voice kept urging him—to blend his moans with Betty's, and carry the heavy baby; or to turn upon his heels, and fly through the darkness from these horrid haunted grounds where his grandsire, and the great emus and dogs lived; where John Brown stated he had his dwelling—away from all these terrors to his small cottage home on the other edge of the bush, where were parents and sisters, music and lights—and another voice urged this.
So he neither followed Betty nor went home; but, in dreadful doubt and great fear, he hung between the two courses in the banana grove, and shivered at the tree-trunks and the rustling leaves and the stray patches of moonlight.
And Betty went forward alone with the baby. Her heart was beating in a sickening way, but her courage was, as usual, equal to the occasion. It was far easier to her to go forward than backward now, and she braced herself up with a few of her stock phrases—"He won't eat me anyway"; "It'll be all the same in a hundred years"; "No Bruce is afraid ever."
A great bay window jutted into the darkness and gave out a blaze of light. This was the lowest room in the tower portion of the house and was, as Betty knew, her grandfather's study.
Betty's mind was swiftly made up. All fear had left her, and she stepped into the soft moonlight—a ghost indeed.
She called Cyril, and her voice was so imperative that he quitted his sheltering tree and ran to where she stood on the edge of the grove.
"Take Baby," she said whisperingly; "I can't do what I want with her in my arms."
"Come home, B—B—Betty," implored the small youth—and his teeth chattered as he spoke—"I—I don't want to be adopted. I——"
"Hush!" urged Betty, and filled his arms with the baby. "I—I don't want to be r—rich," cried Cyril. "It's b—b—better to be poor."