Billie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Never mind, child,” added the distracted lady. “It’s not your fault.”
“It all came about,” remarked Mary, who was fond of tracing things to their beginnings, “because Billie bought a pail of blackberries from Phoebe one morning and Mrs. Lupo was angry.”
This might be considered an interesting and perfectly true statement, but nobody heard it, because they were busy organizing a search party. A few moments later Billie and Ben went down to the village in the motor car for guides, and this time guides were forthcoming.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MILLS OF GOD.
It was not often that Billie lost a night’s rest from anxiety, but that night her eyes refused to close and she lay staring into the darkness, straining her ears for sounds in the forest. Even Richard’s sister, Maggie, was not so abjectly miserable as Billie. She tried to explain to herself that it was all because she had been the one to shoot the young man in the arm.
“I’d much rather have shot that horrid Lupo,” she sobbed under her breath. “Suppose I’ve killed Richard? The wound may be much worse than we thought it was.” She wiped her eyes on the sheet and lay very still listening. Away off on the mountain somewhere a dog began to howl. The weird sound made her shiver and hide her face in the pillow.