“Stop, Nan!” and Patty’s voice was tense, while red spots burned on her cheeks, “don’t you dare cast any reflection on him! My Billee is all right! He is a gentleman! I laid myself open to this treatment and I deserved all I’ve got. It was bad taste to say the least, for me to send that thing! I never should have done it, but to get more money for the committee. I was thoughtless, careless, and foolishly unwilling to let Mr. Herron think I didn’t dare send it. He said ‘you don’t dare take the chance!’ meaning that I might get back—just what I did get back! But I was so sure of Bill’s love, so confident of his faith and loyalty, that I never dreamed there was a chance of Mr. Herron’s being right!”
“He isn’t right!” cried Helen. “I believe there’s a mistake somewhere!”
“Just where?” asked Patty, listlessly. “If you can invent or imagine something that would explain his returning that horrid old thing, tell me! I’ll be glad to know it!”
But Helen couldn’t think of any plausible or even possible explanation or excuse for the return of the valentine.
For Farnsworth was not a practical joker, and indeed, few lovers could have been capable of such a jest as that!
The case seemed to be at a deadlock. It was incredible that Little Billee should have sent back the valentine, yet, there it was! And indubitably from him. There was no possibility that any one else had written Patty’s address on the big envelope. Bill’s large, well-formed chirography was characteristic and unmistakable.
“There’s another thing,” confessed Patty, “Bill thinks I opened a letter that he sent me, sealed. And I didn’t. Maybe that made him stop loving me.”
The flower-face was so pathetic in its tragic grief, that Nan waxed wroth again.
“Patty,” she said, “if Bill Farnsworth has really tossed you off like a discarded glove, I think Fred Fairfield will reckon with him! It’s outrageous,—that’s what it is!”
“Oh, no, Nan; don’t let Father do anything sensational! I don’t want a man who doesn’t want me! I assure you I don’t! I’m no meek Griselda——”