“I have just received news of my father’s death and must break it to Betty. It is going to be very hard; Betty has never known anything but happiness and in spite of—in spite of everything, I believe my father loved her almost better than either my mother or me.”
After her first exclamation of sympathy Esther continued silent, feeling it wiser to let Dick talk himself out to a sympathetic listener than to pour forth her own regrets.
“It isn’t only the loss of my father that Betty and mother will have to endure,” he continued, “but the entire loss of my father’s fortune. The trouble has been brewing for some time, but a few weeks ago the crash came and it must have hastened the end.”
“You don’t mean to say they will have nothing?” Esther inquired in a frightened voice. The thought of Betty, whom her friends had always called “Princess” because of her careless generosity, her indifference, her absolute ignorance of the whole money question, now to face poverty without any training or preparation for it,—the thought fairly made Esther gasp, and Dick who had some idea of what was passing in her mind added:
“Yes, it is pretty rough to bring a girl up to live like a Princess and then suddenly to leave her a pauper. I have always been afraid we have not been quite fair with Betty, maybe it would have been easier for her to have known the truth about things from the beginning. Still it can’t be helped now. But the worst of it is that I know nothing about business either; I have never cared for anything but my profession and it takes a long time for a man to be able to support even himself in medicine until he has had several years of experience at least. I must give it up.”
Dick’s face went whiter than ever at this and Esther, who in spite of a certain shyness and nervousness when she found herself the center of observation, had a really good judgment and self-control, now replied quietly: “I wouldn’t think too much of this now, Mr. Ashton, things are pretty sure to turn out a little better than you feel they can at present and in any case I am sure something will be arranged so that you can go on with your profession. It would be too great a pity, when you have studied so long and are now so near your graduation, to have to give it up.”
Dick Ashton looked at Esther gratefully, thinking of how their positions had been reversed in a little less than a year. Had he not, when first he came upon the shy, homely girl among his sister’s group of friends, done his best to make her more comfortable, less of a stranger and an outsider, and now he felt strangely strengthened and calmed by her presence and advice. He too saw that there were times when Esther’s self-forgetfulness gave her a kind of beauty which was more important than mere lines and color, since it was a beauty that would last far longer.
So the young people walked on for a little time in silence, until Dick Ashton colored and then hesitated.
“I hope you won’t think me rude, Miss Esther, that in my own trouble I have forgotten to congratulate you on having found your father. Betty has written me all about it and I certainly hope it may add to your happiness. I used to wonder even when I was a little boy if you felt very lonely at the asylum without a—a single relative.”
“You wondered about me; then you knew about me?” Esther asked quietly, and turned, stopping short in the path to give Dick Ashton a long, quiet look. Something passed between them without words, one of those subtle and silent communications of thought for which there has been no satisfactory explanation. Yet in the instant each one of them knew that the other had guessed his and her secret, or if not quite guessing it, at least had very reasonable foundations for their suspicion.