"Oh, what's the use of 'buts'? We can't help it now! There's the prep. bell, and we shall have to go along. I hope none of the other girls will say anything. I don't suppose they will."
Linda went into preparation with a very uneasy mind. She was a truthful child, and could not bear to be mixed up with any deceit; but on the other hand she did not like to get her classmates into trouble. She was astonished that Hazel should behave so; it spoilt her faith in her friend, and recalled to her memory several other incidents which she had not noticed much at the time, but were nevertheless occasions on which Hazel had not acted in a strictly honourable manner.
"There was the Punch and Judy on the beach," thought Linda, "when she asked the man to begin, and promised we would give him some pennies, and then said she hadn't any money with her. And once she found Winnie Ingham's penknife, and kept it in her pocket for a week without telling her. And it was she who told Greta Collins to call 'stingy' after Nellie Parker, because she only put down threepence for the fireworks; and it was too bad, for Nellie hardly has any pocket money, and she had given all she had. Oh, dear! I wish Hazel wouldn't do such things. She's so nice in every other way. I like her immensely. But what I think is horrid she only laughs at and calls fun. Sylvia never does." And with that last comparison between her two friends, Linda put her elbows on her desk, and her fingers in her ears, and tried to settle herself to the stern task of learning the subjunctive mood of the verb rendre, having a lively horror of Mademoiselle's wrath on the morrow if she went to the French class with an ill-prepared lesson.
CHAPTER IX
What Miss Kaye Thought of It
Tuesday passed just as usual, and no casual observer would have noticed that anything was amiss with the members of the third class. Elsie Thompson had evidently been frightened into silence by Hazel's threat, no one else mentioned the subject, and beyond the fact that Nina looked pale, and Linda rather distressed, the matter seemed likely to sink into oblivion. At about a quarter to four, however, when Miss Arkwright was in the very middle of explaining the difference between a nominative of address and a nominative in apposition, the door opened suddenly, and Miss Kaye made her appearance. She so seldom came into a class during the afternoon that the hearts of three of her pupils began to thump, their guilty consciences telling them beforehand that her errand must surely concern them and no others. Nor were they mistaken. After apologizing to Miss Arkwright for interrupting the lesson, Miss Kaye turned towards the girls with that stern look in her eyes which they knew and dreaded to meet.
"Hazel Prestbury, Linda Marshall, and Nina Forster," she said in a voice that though quiet was full of emotion, "I am deeply grieved to find that you have been deceiving me. Elsie Thompson told me yesterday that she had seen you run through the gate and down the road towards Aberglyn. I asked you if this were so, and you all three denied it. Knowing that Elsie is not always very truthful I believed your word in preference to hers. This afternoon I happened to meet Miss Newman, a lady who lives near Valley Lane, and she told me that she noticed some of my girls coming out of Mrs. Price's shop yesterday at about ten minutes to five, and hurrying back towards Heathercliffe. I am more pained than I can tell you, not only to think that you should have broken the rules, but that you should have stooped to utter such deliberate falsehoods. You allowed me to accuse Elsie of the very fault you were committing yourselves, and meanly left her to bear the blame. I am thoroughly ashamed of you, and hope you are equally ashamed of yourselves. Go at once to your bedrooms. Your tea will be sent to you later. I feel that, until you have fully realized what you have done, you are not fit to mingle with the rest of the class. You will, of course, take no part in our fifth-of-November party to-morrow."
Poor Linda! She left the room feeling as if her trouble were almost greater than she could bear. It was impossible now to explain that she had only gone as far as the gate. Miss Kaye would probably not believe her, and in any case would think that she was trying to shirk her part of the blame, and cast it on Hazel and Nina. She was beginning to experience the truth of the old proverb that you cannot touch pitch and keep your hands clean; she had never intended to do anything in the least dishonourable, but having taken a first step it had been very difficult to act in such a sudden emergency. Friendship had seemed to demand that she should not betray her companions, though their conduct certainly did not justify any great consideration on their behalf.
"If I'd only never left the house," she thought, "or if I had told Miss Kaye I had gone into the garden! But then she would have known the others must have been there too. Oh, it's all a horrid puzzle, and I'm simply miserable! I shan't see Guy Fawkes to-morrow, and I hate everybody and everything, and I wish I were at home."
She went to bed in tears, which increased when Miss Coleman brought her her tea, and, after collecting Sylvia's nightclothes, informed her that her roommate, together with Connie Camden and Jessie Ellis, were to sleep in a large bedroom generally called "The Hospital", and no one would be allowed even to come in and speak to her. The prospect of sleeping alone without Sylvia made her feel wretched, and it was not till then that she began to realize how much her friend was to her, and what a terrible loss it would be if they were separated.