you, Billy; but--why did you do
it, why did you do it?"

A little later, Billy, in her own room, wrote this note to Bertram:

"DEAR BERTRAM:--I'm going away to-day.
That'll be best all around. You'll agree to that,
I'm sure. Please don't try to see me, and please
don't write. It wouldn't make either one of us
any happier. You must know that.

"As ever your friend,

"BILLY."

Bertram, when he read it, grew only a shade more white, a degree more
sick at heart. Then he kissed the letter gently and put it away with the
other.

To Bertram, the thing was very clear. Billy had come now to the
conclusion that it would be wrong to give herself where she could not
give her heart. And in this he agreed with her--bitter as it was for
him. Certainly he did not want Billy, if Billy did not want him, he told
himself. He would now, of course, accede to her request. He would not
write to her--and make her suffer more. But to Bertram, at that moment,
it seemed that the very sun in the heavens had gone out.

CHAPTER XXXII. PETE TO THE RESCUE

One by one the weeks passed and became a month. Then other weeks became
other months. It was July when Billy, homesick and weary, came back to
Hillside with Aunt Hannah.

Home looked wonderfully good to Billy, in spite of the fact that she had
so dreaded to see it. Billy had made up her mind, however, that, come
sometime she must. She could not, of course, stay always away. Perhaps,
too, it would be just as easy at home as it was away. Certainly it could
not be any harder. She was convinced of that. Besides, she did not want
Bertram to think--

Billy had received only meagre news from Boston since she went away.
Bertram had not written at all. William had written twice--hurt,
grieved, puzzled, questioning letters that were very hard to answer.
From Marie, too, had come letters of much the same sort. By far the
cheeriest epistles had come from Alice Greggory. They contained, indeed,
about the only comfort Billy had known for weeks, for they showed very
plainly to Billy that Arkwright's heart had been caught on the rebound;
and that in Alice Greggory he was finding the sweetest sort of balm for
his wounded feelings. From these letters Billy learned, too, that Judge
Greggory's honor had been wholly vindicated; and, as Billy told Aunt
Hannah, "anybody could put two and two together and make four, now."

It was eight o'cl