"But you can tell me what the claim was for?"
"No, I cannot. It is not altogether my secret, Bettina, and you must not inquire into it. I need not have mentioned it at all to you, but for speaking of Sara. My poor children must suffer. Edward has his day, and he will have to make it suffice: Sara has nothing. Bettina, you will give her a home?"
"There's no necessity for you to ask it," was Bettina Davenal's answer. But she spoke crossly; for the want of confidence in not intrusting to her the nature of this secret was hurting her feelings bitterly. "Should anything happen to you, Sara will naturally find a home with me--if she can put up with its plainness. I shall make her as welcome, and consider it as obligatory on me to do so, as though she were my own child."
The doctor lay back for a moment in his chair, panting. His fingers clasped themselves over hers in token of thanks.
"Richard, surely you might place more confidence in me! If you have been called upon to pay this money in consequence of--of any bygone trouble or debt contracted in your youth--and I conclude it must be something of that sort--do you suppose I cannot be true and keep your counsel? I know what follies the young plunge into!"
"Follies? Crimes, rather!" And the words broke from Dr. Davenal with a groan which told of the deepest mental anguish. It pained even the dull ear that was bent to it.
"Bettina, I say that you must not ask me. If it concerned myself alone you should know as much as I do, but I could not tell you without betraying another; and--and there might be danger. Let it rest. Better for you that it should do so, for it would disturb your peace as it has disturbed mine."
"It's a dreadful sum," said Miss Bettina.
"It is that. And my poor children must be left beggars. I have enjoined Mark Cray to pay three hundred pounds yearly to Sara for five years, out of the proceeds of the practice. He can well afford to do it: and if you will give her a home, this had better be invested for her, Bettina."
"Of course. But what's three hundred for five years? You might make better terms with Mark Cray than that."