It _is_ different when they're hungry! You said yourself if I'd tend to my husband and my home a little more, and--" Bertram looked up with unfeigned amazement.
"I said what ?" he demanded.
In a voice shaken with emotion, Billy repeated the fateful words.
"I never--when did I say that ?" "The night Uncle William and I came home from--Pete's." For a moment Bertram stared dumbly; then a shamed red swept to his forehead.
"Billy, _did_ I say that?
I ought to be shot if I did.

But, Billy, you said you'd forgiven me!" "I did, dear--truly I did; but, don't you see ?--it was true.

I _hadn't_ tended to things.

So I've been doing it since." A sudden comprehension illuminated Bertram's face.
"Heavens, Billy! And is that why you haven't been anywhere, or done anything?
Is that why Calderwell said to-day that you hadn't been with them anywhere, and that--Great Scott, Billy! Did you think I was such a selfish brute as that ?" "Oh, but when I was going with them I _was_ following the book--I thought," quavered Billy; and hurriedly she turned the leaves to a carefully marked passage.

"It's there--about the outside interests.