"I think you'll own that a secret like that is worth more than a twenty-dollar gold piece, Miss Ethel, won't you? And I'm poor, and so is my young man. We want money to get married and start in life. A thousand dollars ain't much to you, with such a rich pa, but it'll be a mint of money to me." "A thousand dollars!" gasped Ethel, then she whispered: "Hetty, who has been telling you these falsehoods about me?" "'Tain't false, Miss Ethel, it's God's own truth, no matter how I found it out. And unless you want me to out with it all to your pa and ma you must fork over a thousand dollars by to-morrow. I know you can do it. Mr. Winans will give you the money for your wedding fixings if you say the word. And I will come back to-morrow afternoon and get it." The girl paused and looked at Ethel with a pleading air strangely at variance with her defiant tone, and in truth there was something of abject shame in her eyes as she waited cringingly for Ethel's answer. "What if I refuse?" at length asked the young girl proudly. "Oh, Miss Ethel, please don't," and Hetty's voice was almost a sob. "I--I--am almost ashamed of myself, but look, how poor I am, and these shabby clothes, too; I've not been in service since I left you, and I'm out of money, and I've gone hungry many a time. Oh, please, please, give me a thousand dollars," and Hetty suddenly fell on her knees and plucked piteously at Ethel's gown, adding: "It looks ungrateful in me I know, but I love you, and I never would have come only they made me--No, no, I don't mean that--my poor head is dazed. It was the dreadful poverty made me come." "A hundred dollars would relieve your poverty, Hetty," the young girl said, coldly and suspiciously. "Oh, no, Miss Ethel, not a cent less than one thousand. It's the price of your safety. Only give me that, and no one shall bother you afterward. You needn't fear the secret any more after that price is paid." "But, Hetty, there's nothing to fear in that secret," cried Ethel, frantically explaining how the rope had broken. "I was half crazed with grief at first, and after my sister was saved we agreed between us that nothing need be said. I was ashamed of having gone to the old fortune-teller," she said, remembering with a keen pang the old hag's prediction: "You will sin and you will suffer." But Hetty remained sullenly unconvinced, and answered boldly: "You were certainly afraid of something, Miss Ethel, or you would not be keeping it so dark. And, anyway, you wouldn't like to be exposed after all these months, would you?" "No, no," admitted Ethel miserably, and in the end she agreed to pay the price demanded for the keeping of her secret. CHAPTER XXX. "THE FLOWER OF FRIENDSHIP CAN ONLY BLOOM IN IMPERISHABLE BEAUTY IN THE CONGENIAL SOIL OF A NOBLE NATURE."