“Oh, dear me! I can’t go—I can’t go!” moaned Nancy Nelson. “It wouldn’t be right. Madame Schakael said I wasn’t to go out——”
And then she remembered the bag she had tossed out of the window. She must have that bag back, if she wasn’t going away. If it remained there over night perhaps Mr. Pease, or Samuel, would find it.
And then the story would all come out, and her position in the school would be worse!
But Nancy knew that she had no right to leave the building at this particular time. That was the plain understanding, that recreation hours should be spent within the Hall, unless Miss Etching invited her to join a walking party.
The physical instructor was now down on the ice with the girls. Nancy might have asked one of the other teachers for permission to step out for just a minute; but that would entail much explanation.
The brush clump into which she had thrown her bag was around the farther corner of the wing. And just then she heard laughing and talking as the first group from the river approached the Hall.
Ah! there was Jennie. Nancy identified her jolly laugh and chatter immediately. She could trust Jennie. Jennie would slip around the house and bring in the fatal bag secretly, and keep still about it.
So Nancy kept back in the dark hall and let the troop of laughing girls pass her without saying a word. Jennie came last and Nancy seized her arm.
“Goodness to gracious and eight hands around!” gasped Jennie. “How you startled me. Is it you, Nancy?”
“Hush! Yes.”