“Yes. I mean, no,” corrected Marie, suddenly beginning to realize what she was saying. “Really, it wasn't anything—it isn't anything!” she protested.
“Hm-m,” murmured Billy, archly. “Oh, I'm getting on some! He did show, once, that he cared; but you thought it was another girl, and you coldly looked the other way. Now, there ISN'T any other girl, you find, and—Marie, tell me the rest!”
Marie shook her head emphatically, and pulled herself gently away from Billy's grasp.
“No, no, please!” she begged. “It really isn't anything. I'm sure I'm imagining it all!” she cried, as she ran away.
During the days that followed, Billy speculated not a little on Marie's half-told story, and wondered interestedly who the man might be. She questioned Marie once again, but the girl would tell nothing more; and, indeed, Billy was so occupied with her own perplexities that she had little time for those of other people.
To herself Billy was forced to own that she was not “getting used to things.” She was still self-conscious with William; she could not forget that she was one day to be his wife. She could not bring back the dear old freedom of comradeship with him.
Billy was alarmed now. She had begun to ask herself searching questions. What should she do if never, never should she get used to the idea of marrying William? How could she marry him if he was still “Uncle William,” and never her dear lover in her eyes? Why had she not been wise enough and brave enough to tell him in the first place that she was not at all sure that she loved him, but that she would try to do so? Then when she had tried—as she had now—and failed, she could have told him honestly the truth, and it would not have been so great a shock to him as it must be now, if she should tell him.
Billy had remorsefully come to the conclusion that she could never love any man well enough to marry him, when one day so small a thing as a piece of paper fluttered into her vision, and showed her the fallacy of that idea.
It was a half-sheet of note paper, and it blew from Marie's balcony to the lawn below. Billy found it there later, and as she picked it up her eyes fell on a single name in Marie's handwriting inscribed half a dozen times as if the writer had musingly accompanied her thoughts with her pen; and the name was, “Marie Henshaw.”
For a moment Billy stared at the name perplexedly—then in a flash came the remembrance of Marie's words; and Billy breathed: “Henshaw!—the man—BERTRAM!”