what _is_ the matter?" demanded Bertram resolutely, at
last, when his more indirect questions had been evasively turned aside.
"You can't make me think there isn't something the trouble, because I
know there is!"

"Well, then, there is, dear," smiled Billy, tearfully; "but please just
don't let us talk of it. I--I want to forget it. Truly I do."

"But I want to know so _I_ can forget it," persisted Bertram. "What is
it? Maybe I could help."

She shook her head with a little frightened cry.

"No, no--you can't help--really."

"But, sweetheart, you don't know. Perhaps I could. Won't you _tell_ me
about it?"

Billy looked distressed.

"I can't, dear--truly. You see, it isn't quite mine--to tell."

"Not yours!"

"Not--entirely."

"But it makes you feel bad?"

"Yes--very."

"Then can't I know that part?"

"Oh, no--no, indeed, no! You see--it wouldn't be fair--to the other."

Bertram stared a little. Then his mouth set into stern lines.

"Billy, what are you talking about? Seems to me I have a right to know."

Billy hesitated. To her mind, a girl who would tell of the unrequited
love of a man for herself, was unspeakably base. To tell Bertram
Arkwright's love story was therefore impossible. Yet, in some way, she
must set Bertram's mind at rest.

"Dearest," she began slowly, her eyes wistfully pleading, "just what it
is, I can't tell you. In a way it's another's secret, and I don't feel
that I have the right to tell it. It's just something that I learned
this afternoon."

"But it has made you cry!"

"Yes. It made me feel very unhappy."

"Then--it was something you couldn't help?"

To Bertram's surprise, the face he was watching so intently flushed
scarlet.

"No, I couldn't help it--now; though I might have--once." Billy spoke
this last just above her breath. Then she went on, beseechingly:
"Bertram, please, please don't talk of it any more. It--it's just
spoiling our happy evening together!"

Bertram bit his lip, and drew a long sigh.

"All right, dear; you know best, of course--since I don't know
_anything_ about it," he finished a little stiffly.

Billy began to talk then very brightly of Aunt Hannah and her shawls,
and of a visit she had made to Cyril and Marie that morning.

"And, do you know? Aunt Hannah's clock _has_ done a good turn, at last,
and justified its existence. Listen," she cried gayly. "Marie had a
letter from her mother's Cousin Jane. Cousin Jane couldn't sleep nights,
be