who knew of our acquaintance."

"Why, my son, if you went walking in the woods with the girl, any one
might have seen you."

"I didn't. It was quite by accident that we met there. Miss Shirley was
anxious to keep her presence in the house a secret from everybody."

Mrs. Verrian would not take any but the open way, with this. She would
not deal indirectly, with it, or in any wise covertly or surreptitiously.
"It seems to me that Miss Shirley has rather a fondness for secrecy," she
said.

"I think she has," Verrian admitted. "Though, in this case, it was
essential to the success of her final scheme. But she is a curious
study. I suppose that timidity is at the bottom of all fondness for
secrecy, isn't it?"

"I don't know. She doesn't seem to be timid in everything."

"Say it out, mother!" Verrian challenged her with a smile. "You're not
timid, anyway!"

"She had the courage to join in that letter, but not the courage to own
her part in it. She was brave enough to confess that she had been sick
of a nervous fever from the answer you wrote to the Brown girl, but she
wouldn't have been brave enough to confess anything at all if she had
believed she would be physically or morally strong enough to keep it."

"Perhaps nobody--nobody but you, mother--is brave in the right time and