"Do you mean all the time?" queried Billy.
She nodded her head. "Yes, all the time. Oh, Billy Little, you won't mind if I tell you about it, will you? I must speak—and there is no one else."
"What is it you want to say, Rita?" he asked softly.
"I hardly know—perhaps it is the great change that has taken place within me since the night of Scott's social and the afternoon I shot Doug Hill. I seem to be hundreds of years older. I must have been a child before that night."
"You are a child now, Rita."
"Oh, no," she replied, "trouble matures one."
"But you are not in trouble?"
"N-o—" she answered hesitatingly, "but—but this is what I want to say. Tell me, Billy Little, do you think anything can come between Dic and me? That is the thought that haunts me all the time and makes me unhappy."
"Do you feel sure of Dic?" asked Billy.
"Indeed, I do," she replied; "I am as sure of him as I am of myself."