time when I have spoken of it. But the other day I got
mother to the point where there was no possible excuse for her not
explaining the entire reason for her attitude and Dick's toward the
place, when suddenly she broke down and left me. We might amuse
ourselves while we are invalids discovering whether or not it is
haunted. Only I don't exactly wish to make the discovery alone."

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAW OF THE FIRE

Mollie O'Neill walked slowly toward the Ashton house one afternoon not
long afterwards at about four o'clock, looking unusually serious and
uncomfortable. She was wearing a long coat buttoned up to her chin and
coming down to the bottom of her dress, and was carrying a big book.

"Mollie, there isn't anything the matter? Neither Betty nor Polly is
worse again?" Billy Webster inquired, unexpectedly striding across from
the opposite side of the street and not stopping to offer his greeting
before beginning his questioning.

Mollie shook her head, although her face still retained so solemn an
expression that the young man was plainly alarmed. Ordinarily Mollie's
blue eyes were as untroubled as blue lakes and her forehead and mouth
as free from the lines of care or even annoyance.

Billy Webster put the book under his arm and continued walking along
beside her.

"If there is anything that troubles you, Mollie, and you believe that I
can help you, please don't ever fail to call on me," he suggested in
the gentle tones that he seemed ever to reserve for this girl alone.
"I know that Polly is dreadfully angry over my interference in New
York, but so long as you and your mother thought I did right and were
grateful to me, I don't care how Polly feels--at least, I don't care a
great deal. And I believe I should behave in exactly the same way if I
had it all to do over again."

Shyly and yet with an admiration that she did not attempt to conceal
Mollie glanced up at her companion. Billy was always so determined, so
sure of his own ideas of right and wrong, that once having made a
decision or taken a step, he never appeared to regret it afterwards.
And this attitude under the present circumstances was a consolation to
Mollie. For oftentimes since Polly's return and while enduring her
reproaches, she had experienced twinges of conscience for having
concerned an outsider in their family affairs, though somehow Billy did
not seem like an outsider. Polly had insisted that she had been most
unwise