It was a long, dreary journey which Billy took that day. The plentiful morning meal had beggared the future, but it had given the boy power to start well. With daylight and home in view, although at a dim distance, Billy felt that he controlled Fate. It would be some days before Jared could possibly get the letter to Joyce. Long before it came he, Billy, would be on the spot, and nothing could pass unnoticed before his eyes. At eight o'clock of that second day, the boy, worn to the verge of exhaustion, staggered into his mother's kitchen, and almost frightened Peggy to death by simply announcing: "I've cut, and I'll be eternally busted if I ever go back, so there! And I'm starved." With the latter information Peggy could deal; the former was beyond her. She prepared a satisfying repast for her son; noting, as she hovered over him, the change that had come. He was no longer a child, therefore he was to be respected. An awe possessed Peggy. The awe of Man as she had ever known him. Her Billy was a man! Then she noticed how thin he was, and how his mouth drooped, and how black the circles were under his big eyes. Had they been cruel to him in camp? They could be so cruel; but then, Billy was a favourite. What had happened? It was proof of Billy's spiritual and physical change that Peggy did not cuff him and demand an explanation. CHAPTER XV Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them. "You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being trained for the bungalow fete, and she had suffered in the process. Billy eyed her indifferently. "Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied. "Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's cup for the fourth time with a concoction which passed in St. Ange for coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it. "No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "nobody ain't ever going to kill me, never!" He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and, half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder. Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him. "Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in, "and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat." Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter. "Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished. Maggie set about the task with relief. Something was afoot that she could not understand. Maggie was not spiritually constructed, but she was going to be a woman some day!