Only a little crestfallen, she was sent away to bed. My mother had motioned me to wait. As I watched Bettina making her apologies and her good-night, I thought how worse than useless had been all that anxiety and strain. "I shall remember to-night," I said to myself, "whenever I am frightened again." But this, I could see before she spoke, was not the moral my mother was drawing. "Shut the door," she signed. And when I had come back to her, she drew herself up in bed and laid her hand on mine. "I want you to make me a promise," she said. "It is not fair to girls not to let them know that terrible things _can_ happen. Promise me that you will take better care of Bettina. Never let anyone make you forget----" I promised--oh, I promised that! CHAPTER XV MY SECRET Eric, like the violets and primroses, came earlier that third spring. He seemed an old friend now, with an established footing in the house. Yet I had never been alone with him for more than five minutes before the day I told him my secret. I had imagined it all so different from the way it fell out. I said to myself that I would meet him on his way home some evening, after he had played the last round. He would never know that I had been waiting for him in the copse; but that would be where I should tell him, standing by the nearer stile, where I had first seen kindness in his eyes. My mother's health was worse again that spring, and when I wasn't studying I was much with her. After Eric came I stayed with her even more, for he said she had lost ground. He discouraged her from coming downstairs. I believe he prevailed on her to keep her room chiefly by coming constantly to see her, bringing books and papers. My mother's sick-room was not like any other I have seen. It was full of light and air, and hope and pleasantness. She would lie on the sofa in one of the loose gowns she looked so lovely in, and we would have tea up there. Nearly always I managed to go down to the door with Eric. One day, that very first week, he came a good hour before we expected him. Bettina had shut herself up to write to Hermione, "----and I am afraid my mother is asleep," I said. "Well, you are not," he answered. I saw his eyes fall on the books and papers that littered the morning-room sofa, and I felt myself grow red. The books would betray me! The strange thing was that he pushed them away without ever looking at them! And he sat down beside me.