"Why, it's to me," she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to decipher the pieced letter.
"Dear Billie:
"Since you all hate and disapprove of me, I do not wish to stay with you any longer. You have been anything but a friend to me, but I will not say anything more about that. I will only say that I can never forgive what you said to me the other day. I think I have outgrown you. You are just a child still and it will be a long time before you understand the ways of the world, or sympathize with me when I say that I want to broaden my life. Now, Mme. Fontaine, who knows everything, has promised—"
Here the letter broke off.
On the other side of the sheet were some more fragments of paper carefully pieced together.
"—do not wish to stay because—father's work—he should not—Mme. Fontaine thinks—"
Billie folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt suddenly stiff and tired. Komatsu regarded her from a distance with respectful sympathy.
"Back home," she ordered, and all the way she indulged in the bitterest weeping she had ever known in her life.
"Nancy, Nancy, how could you?" she kept repeating to herself.
Before she reached the house she dried her eyes and leaning out of the 'riksha let the rain beat against her face.