"And I say that if you broke into our house and stole the silver, you couldn't be more of a thief than you are this moment." Val stared at her speechless, and then: "I think if you were a man I could kill you. Why do you stay here?" she said, coming a step nearer with ill-controlled fury. "We aren't expecting Ethan to-day. Why do you stay?" Julia squared her Junoesque shoulders against the crooked tree and stood her ground. "You can, of course, behave like a wild savage if it suits you, but I'd like to know what you mean to do." "Do!" Val dropped her arms listless to her sides. "What is there to do?" "Shall you tell your cousin you stole his letters?" "No. I shall tell my cousin exactly what happened." She turned to go up to the house. "I wouldn't, if I were you. Look here, there's no reason, because our friendship's broken, that we should do more things we shall regret. You've no right because you've got hold of my secret--you've no right to pass it on to Ethan." It was an agony to hear her call him Ethan. "You mustn't tell him that I--that I carry his letters about. And I won't tell him that you--" "Tell him what you like!" Val went angrily up the terrace-steps; but all the same, Julia knew perfectly that she had secured herself now against Ethan's hearing what had happened. Val could, most indefensibly, tear her secret out of her keeping in the passion of the moment. But Julia had little fear that in cold blood her old friend would "give her away" to the man they both loved. CHAPTER XXVII That night Mrs. Gano was prostrated by a feverish cold. The doctor was sent for, and Val carried out his instructions so faithfully that in twenty-four hours the patient was comfortably mending. In the intervals of nursing Val had written to Ethan in pencil: "I've got to see you. It doesn't matter that I can't ask you to the Fort, or that grandma is not to know. You must come and stay a day or two at some small town quite near here. I'll get a day off for a picnic or something, and meet you either in Blake's Woods, or at one of the steamboat landings up the river. Don't hesitate about this. I'm not a child, and I've a right to see you about a matter so important to me." She closed without a hint as to what the matter was. He answered by return of post, pointing out that he couldn't possibly come to see her clandestinely, for her own sake. "For my sake! Not a bit of it. For grandma's sake. He's afraid." The conclusion was the easier in that she was herself afraid. It was then Val remembered that Mrs. Ball, the former Jessie Hornsey, who now lived in the capital of the State, had several times asked Val to visit her. The girl went out and sent the lady a telegram. "I'm going to stay a few days with Mrs. Austin Ball," she announced with outward calm and much inward trepidation when she came home. "_You are going_--" Mrs. Gano sat up in bed and stared.