out the route
he must follow, she would bid him a touching adieu and beseech him, in
the impossible language of some old romancer, to go and lead a
blameless life. Sitting there at the table opposite him, stirring the
sugar heedlessly into her tea, one favorite exhortation returned from
her dream-world, clear as if she had just spoken it aloud. "Go, and
sin no more; and if perchance you will in some distant far land send me
a kind thought, that will be reward enough for what I have done this
day. Farewell, Ward Warren--Kismet."

The lips of Billy Louise smiled and stopped just short of laughter, and
she looked across at Ward Warren as if she expected him to laugh also
at that frightfully virtuous though stilted adieu. She found him
looking straight at her in that intent fashion that seemed as if he
would see through and all around her and her thoughts. He was not
smiling at all. His mouth was pulled into a certain bitter
understanding; indeed, he looked exactly as if Billy Louise had dealt
him a deliberate affront which he could neither parry nor fling back at
her, but must endure with what stoicism he might.

Billy Louise blushed guiltily, took an unpremeditated swallow of tea,
and grimaced over the sickish sweetness of it. She got up and emptied
the tea into the slop bucket, and loitered over the refilling of the
cup so that when she returned to the table she was at least outwardly
calm. She felt another quick, keen glance from across the table, but
she helped herself composedly to the cream and listened to her mother
with flattering attention.

"Jase has got all-gone feelings now, mommie," she remarked irrelevantly
during a brief pause and relapsed into silence again. She knew that
was good for at least five minutes of straight monologue, with her
mother in that talking mood. She finished her supper while Warren
listened abstractedly to a complete biography of the Meilkes and
learned all about Marthy's energy and Jase's shiftlessness.

"Ward Warren!" Billy Louise was saying to herself. "Did you ever in
your life--it's exactly as if Minervy should come to life and walk in.
Ward Warren! There couldn't possibly be two Ward Warrens; it's such an
odd name. Well!"

Then she went mentally over that paragraph. She wished she did not
remember every single word of it, but she did. And she was afraid to
look at him after that. And she wanted to, dreadfully. She felt as
though he belonged to her. Why, he