The letter contained only these words written by Helena:
“Keep my secret: I would have kept yours.”
They left her no wiser.
“My dear, come into my room for a moment,” said Mevrouw Mopius, with timid voice. The feeble little creature sniffed nervously. “Forget what I told you, Ursula,” she went on, as soon as they were alone. “And remember you are bound by oath. If Mopius ever hears, it must be through you.” She peered sternly at her niece.
“Yes, dear, I will remember,” replied Ursula. “But you are feeling better, aunt, are you not? You are not as bad as when I came.”
Mevrouw Mopius smiled. “I shall be better soon,” she said. Then she went to her particular old-fashioned mahogany “secretary,” and, after a good deal of fumbling and searching, extracted from one of many receptacles a small tissue-paper parcel, which she brought back to Ursula. “This is for you,” she said, thrusting it into the girl’s hand. “I’ve made it since you came, sitting up in bed these summer mornings.” Ursula opened the parcel, her aunt watching meanwhile with a certain pride.
It contained a small square bit of red wool-work, with the bead-embroidered device, “No cross, no crown,” the two substantives being presented pictorially.
“I could have taken more time to it,” pleaded Mevrouw Mopius, “but I had to wait for the daylight: a candle wakes your uncle; and, once up, I have to work at ‘Laban and Jacob.’ I am exceedingly anxious to get them ready before”—She stopped. “Good-bye, my dear,” she said. “I hope you like my work. You might use it under a lamp, or for the fire-irons, unless you disapprove of that on account of the words. I don’t think I should.”
So Ursula returned very quietly and humbly. There was no marshalling of porters, and she travelled second class. At the little market-town station her father met her; together they trudged the two miles side by side almost silently, for the girl’s few answers had soon convinced the Dominé that conversation had become for the moment, what he most detested, an ambuscade.