"You are troubled about something?" she divined one night when they sat indoors before an open fire, for an unseasonable rain was falling in a country where rain is supposed to be always seasonable. It was chill outside and raw, and it was a bit chill in Henry's heart, notwithstanding the cozy comfort of the library fire.
"Troubled? I should say I am troubled," he confessed huskily, and all at once it seemed possible to outline to her the inside story of Hurricane Island—shielding her father carefully, putting the burden of the iniquity entirely on Scanlon and Quackenbaugh.
But when he had finished, Billie viewed him with a clear and sifting gaze. "Aren't you presuming a good deal, Henry?" she asked. "Aren't you . . . reflecting on father's intelligence a little? He's smarter than Scanlon and Quackenbaugh. They couldn't fool him. And he wouldn't do anything that is wrong. Not anything. Father is a very conscientious man. Really, Henry!" Her brows were beautifully arched; her eyes were soft but wondering and accusative, almost as speculating whether all this success which had come to her lover so swiftly might not have turned his head. And there he was, stopped again.
"It's not that she's blind like the rest of them," he reasoned when at length he was out in the misting rain, and crossing to where his car was parked. "It's because I couldn't tell it to her exactly as it is—in all its hideousness—without hurting her." And Henry, standing with the rain in his uplifted face, then and there highly resolved that he would not hurt her. No! For he loved her. No act of his should ever paint the blush of shame upon that proud cheek nor shatter such beautiful faith in her father's rectitude.
