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234 “Really?” he said so warmly that she blushed a bit.

“Yes, I finished the book to-day. I was thinking it all over—this last year. My new sense of getting somewhere, and of you—the big part you play in it all. Have I ever told you how utterly grateful I am?”

He looked down at her, sunk among the cushions of the big couch, before replying.

“I think you need not say it,” he replied. “I have been so richly rewarded in knowing you.”

“Thanks, friend.”

“You’ve been my secret garden this last year.”

“Oh, that is nice of you,” she interrupted, sensing an undercurrent of feeling. “If I am your secret garden, you’re my secret well, because nobody knows about us.”

“You haven’t told them yet?”

“No. When the book comes out I shall give them each a copy, and run and hide while they read it.”

“Little girl,” he smiled at her, “what do you think brought me down here to-day?”

“No idea.”

“Guess.”

“Can’t. Never guessed anything in my life.”