ussing about, worrying over
little things, gently garrulous. If mommie had come back well, she
would have asked Phoebe about everything in the house and out of it.
There would have been a housewifely accounting going on at this minute.
Phoebe would be apologetic over those grimy windows, instead of merely
sympathetic over the sorrow in the house. Billy Louise wondered
wherein she lacked. For the life of her she could not feel that it
mattered whether the windows were clean or dirty; life was drab and
cheerless outside them, anyway.

Billy Louise in the last few months had tried to picture herself alone,
with mommie gone. Her imagination was too alive and saw too clearly
the possibilities for her never to have dwelt upon this very crisis in
her life. But whenever she had tried to think what it would be like,
she had always pictured Ward beside her, shielding her from dreary
details and lightening her burden with his whimsical gentleness. She
had felt sure that Ward would ride down every week for news of her, and
she had expected to find him there waiting for her, after that last
letter. Whatever could be the matter? Had he left the country?

Billy Louise's faith had compromised definitely with her doubts of him.
Guilty or innocent, she would be his friend always; that was the
condition her faith had laid down challengingly before her doubts. But
unless he were innocent and proved it to her, she would never marry
him, no matter how much she loved him. That was the concession her
faith had made to her doubts.

Billy Louise had a wise little brain, for all she idealized life and
her surroundings out of all proportion to reality. She told herself
that if she married Ward with her doubts alive, her misery would be far
greater than if she gave him up, except as a friend. Of course, her
ideals stepped in there with an impracticable compromise. She brought
back the Ward Warren of her "pretend" life. She dreamed of him as a
mutely adoring friend who stood and worshiped her from afar, and
because of his sins could not cross the line of friendship.

If he were a rustler, she would shield him and save him, if that were
possible. He would love her always--Billy Louise could not conceive of
Ward transferring his affections to another less exacting woman--and he
would be grateful for her friendship. She could build long, lovely
scenes where friendliness was put to the front bravely, while love hid
behind the mask an