A crowd of people gathered around them.
Billie patted her on the shoulder.
“I do forgive you,” she whispered, “and if you would rather not go into the station, we will take you home in ‘The Comet.’”
“Any place but home,” sobbed Belle, as Ben threw his ulster around her shivering shoulders and Nancy wrapped a scarf about her head.
The others had now recognized the poor girl, and with a generous impulse they tried to shield her from the gaze of the villagers.
“Will you go to Cousin Helen’s, then?” asked Belle, as they half carried her up the steep path.
“Yes,” she answered, and in another ten minutes the miserable refugee was being tenderly ministered to at Billie’s home by three of the most detested members of the Blue Bird Society.
CHAPTER XXIII.—BELLE’S CONFESSION.
Belle, looking still very unlike herself, lay in Billie’s little brass bed, propped up on pillows.
“How can you and Miss Campbell be so kind to me,” she was saying, “when you know how wicked I have been?”