Train due at five P.M.
"BILLY." William Henshaw did not know that in Hampden Falls Billy's trunk had been packed for days.

Billy was desperate.

The house, even with the maid, and with the obliging neighbor and his wife who stayed there nights, was to Billy nothing but a dismal tomb.

Lawyer Harding had fallen suddenly ill; she could not even tell him that the blessed telegram "Come" had arrived.

Hence Billy, lonely, impulsive, and always used to pleasing herself, had taken matters in hand with a confident grasp, and had determined to wait no longer.
That it was a fearsomely unknown future to which she was so jauntily pledging herself did not trouble the girl in the least.