“Oh, God protect him,” she whispered, and then blushed furiously. “I suppose I have a perfect right to pray for a friend?” she thought in reply to some unspoken thought.
Besides the anxiety she felt, all sorts of new and unusual sensations were disturbing her peace of mind that wakeful night. She experienced a kind of irritation against Phoebe, which she could not explain to herself.
“He’ll think she’s lots braver than I am,” she thought, naming no names, “because I wouldn’t dare go out in the woods alone at night to hunt for him. She is braver and better than I am. She is wonderful and—and so beautiful. I—I wish my hair wasn’t so straight,” she added to the pillow into which she had poured these girlish secrets.
At last when the first gray streaks of dawn appeared, Billie rose and, quietly dressing, crept downstairs.
“How silly I have been,” she was admonishing herself, irritably, when she saw Phoebe run around the side of the house and stand looking up at the sleeping porch.
Billie dashed across the clearing.
“Phoebe, have you found him? Is he all right?” she demanded, grasping the girl’s shoulders and shaking her in her impatience.
“Yes. I found him and took him to my home,” answered Phoebe proudly. “He was lost in the marsh just as you were. His arm was bleeding and he was very weak.”
“He is very ill?”
“No, no. It was from losing so much blood, they said.”