"Betty Graham, I desire to make a confession to you and to request you to keep my secret until such time as I may be willing to speak of it myself. The truth is I am not so poor as I have allowed you and Polly and the Camp Fire girls to believe. I have lost money, my home for French orphans is costing twice the amount I had expected it would cost, and I have found it an excellent arrangement to rent my house near Boston and to live as economically as possible, but I am not a pauper. Now do use your intelligence and understand why I have wished you to be deceived.
"Apparently I had hopelessly estranged Polly and had reached a point where I could not any longer endure being apart from her. Some weeks ago she sent me word through Richard that never so long as she lived would she accept anything more at my hands and that she had entreated me to make friends with her for the last time. There are occasions you know when Polly can be singularly obstinate. So what was I to do? Appeal to her sympathy, make her believe there was something she could do for me. Mavourneen, I knew she would fly to my rescue. So I sent out the word and she came and now I shall be parted from her no more. But, Betty, my dear, Polly shall never suffer. Do not believe that I shall fail to keep sufficient money to see she has all she desires. For the present let us have our little house and our summer together and Polly the belief that she is caring for me. I shall dread the day when she learns what I have told you."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ETERNAL WAY
The Eternal Way lies before him,
The Way that is made manifest in the Wise.
The Heart that loves reveals itself to man,
For now he draws nigh to the Source,
The night advances fast,
And lo! the moon shines bright.
"Will you come into the garden for a farewell talk with me, Bettina? You know, I leave for Washington in the morning."
"In a quarter of an hour, David. I must see that my two small girls are in bed before I join you. Suppose you wait for me on the beach near the sun dial."
The night was warm and instead of sitting down David Hale walked about, thinking of a very different garden where first he had met Bettina Graham, the "Queen's Secret Garden", near "The Little Trianon" in the great park at Versailles.
He remembered his own surprise upon discovering an American girl half asleep in the shadow of a group of statuary and startled into wakefulness by his unexpected approach.
So their acquaintance had begun in a romantic setting that David thought never to find repeated. To-night he was by no means sure the surroundings were not equally lovely.