Billy sat down on the edge of the bed. “Aunt Hannah,” she began in a monotonous voice as if she were reciting a lesson she had learned by heart, “please listen, and please try not to be too surprised. You were saying the other day that you would like to visit your old home town. Well, I think that's a very nice idea. If you don't mind we'll go to-day.” Aunt Hannah pulled herself half erect in bed. “_To-day_--child?” “Yes,” nodded Billy, unsmilingly. “We shall have to go somewhere to-day, and I thought you would like that place best.” “But--Billy!--what does this mean?” Billy sighed heavily. “Yes, I understand. You'll have to know the rest, of course. I've broken my engagement. I don't want to see Bertram. That's why I'm going away.” Aunt Hannah fell nervelessly back on the pillow. Her teeth fairly chattered. “Oh, my grief and conscience--_Billy!_ Won't you please pull up that blanket,” she moaned. “Billy, what do you mean?” Billy shook her head and got to her feet. “I can't tell any more now, really, Aunt Hannah. Please don't ask me; and don't--talk. You _will_--go with me, won't you?” And Aunt Hannah, with her terrified eyes on Billy's piteously agitated face, nodded her head and choked: “Why, of course I'll go--anywhere--with you, Billy; but--why did you do it, why did you do it?” A little later, Billy, in her own room, wrote this note to Bertram: “DEAR BERTRAM:--I'm going away to-day. That'll be best all around. You'll agree to that, I'm sure. Please don't try to see me, and please don't write. It wouldn't make either one of us any happier. You must know that. “As ever your friend, “BILLY.” Bertram, when he read it, grew only a shade more white, a degree more sick at heart. Then he kissed the letter gently and put it away with the other. To Bertram, the thing was very clear. Billy had come now to the conclusion that it would be wrong to give herself where she could not give her heart. And in this he agreed with her--bitter as it was for him. Certainly he did not want Billy, if Billy did not want him, he told himself. He would now, of course, accede to her request. He would not write to her--and make her suffer more. But to Bertram, at that moment, it seemed that the very sun in the heavens had gone out. CHAPTER XXXII. PETE TO THE RESCUE One by one the weeks passed and became a month. Then other weeks became other months. It was July when Billy, homesick and weary, came back to Hillside with Aunt Hannah. Home looked wonderfully good to Billy, in spite of the fact that she had so dreaded to see it. Billy had made up her mind, however, that, come sometime she must. She could not, of course, stay always away. Perhaps, too, it would be just as easy at home as it was away. Certainly it could not be any harder. She was convinced of that. Besides, she did not want Bertram to think--