"Never mind, child," added the distracted lady. "It's not your fault." "It all came about," remarked Mary, who was fond of tracing things to their beginnings, "because Billie bought a pail of blackberries from Phoebe one morning and Mrs. Lupo was angry." This might be considered an interesting and perfectly true statement, but nobody heard it, because they were busy organizing a search party. A few moments later Billie and Ben went down to the village in the motor car for guides, and this time guides were forthcoming. CHAPTER XIX. THE MILLS OF GOD. It was not often that Billie lost a night's rest from anxiety, but that night her eyes refused to close and she lay staring into the darkness, straining her ears for sounds in the forest. Even Richard's sister, Maggie, was not so abjectly miserable as Billie. She tried to explain to herself that it was all because she had been the one to shoot the young man in the arm. "I'd much rather have shot that horrid Lupo," she sobbed under her breath. "Suppose I've killed Richard? The wound may be much worse than we thought it was." She wiped her eyes on the sheet and lay very still listening. Away off on the mountain somewhere a dog began to howl. The weird sound made her shiver and hide her face in the pillow. "Oh, God protect him," she whispered, and then blushed furiously. "I suppose I have a perfect right to pray for a friend?" she thought in reply to some unspoken thought. Besides the anxiety she felt, all sorts of new and unusual sensations were disturbing her peace of mind that wakeful night. She experienced a kind of irritation against Phoebe, which she could not explain to herself. "He'll think she's lots braver than I am," she thought, naming no names, "because I wouldn't dare go out in the woods alone at night to hunt for him. She is braver and better than I am. She is wonderful and--and so beautiful. I--I wish my hair wasn't so straight," she added to the pillow into which she had poured these girlish secrets. At last when the first gray streaks of dawn appeared, Billie rose and, quietly dressing, crept downstairs. "How silly I have been," she was admonishing herself, irritably, when she saw Phoebe run around the side of the house and stand looking up at the sleeping porch. Billie dashed across the clearing. "Phoebe, have you found him? Is he all right?" she demanded, grasping the girl's shoulders and shaking her in her impatience. "Yes. I found him and took him to my home," answered Phoebe proudly. "He was lost in the marsh just as you were. His arm was bleeding and he was very weak." "He is very ill?" "No, no. It was from losing so much blood, they said." "They?" "Old Granny and Dr. Hume. My father is there, too." Phoebe clasped her hands. "Oh, God is good to me," she cried. "That I should find my father and Mr. Hook on the same day." Billie felt strangely irritated, and then reproachful of herself. "And your father, Phoebe," she asked kindly. "What happened to him?"