Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/388

 "He wants to marry me!" she confessed. "And I love him so much that I won't! I know it's all on account of this miserable money, and he only wants to be fair with me, and divide. I simply can't accept him on that account! He'd think, anyway, I was after him on account of his money, even if I didn't think he was after me only because of his conscience. It's hopeless, my dear, hopeless! I hope I'll die and end it that way! I wish I might never see a package of 'Soothoid' again as long as I live!"

"Oh, of course you'll marry him!" Valeska said. "I'm sure he's in love with you."

"He is not! He talks all the time about our dividing the money; so I'm sure he only wants to arrange it like one of those royal family complications I've read about. I've got to tell some one!" she went on. "I'm breaking my heart with it. I have no mother and no father," here she broke off to stare wildly at Valeska, "unless the colonel is my father; and so I tell you! Oh, dear! it can never be settled! That's the horrible part of it. If that horrid old nurse had only been more careful of us!" and she laughed through her tears hysterically. "What shall I do, Valeska, what shall I do?"

"Do you really want my advice?" Valeska asked. Bessie snuggled closer to her friend.

"I have a friend," Valeska said slowly, "a man whom I know you can trust. He is the wisest person in the world, it seems to me. He has been my friend a long time. He saved me from what was worse than death."

"Are you in love with him?" Bessie interrupted.

Valeska ignored the remark. "He is a palmist and an astrologer, and I used to work for him. He has solved some of the most astonishing mysteries in this