Dorothy’s brows contracted—there was such a world of misery in her heart that she felt as if she would sink under the weight of it. “Oh, I wish I had not enrolled! I wish I had not come to Compton!” she burst out distressfully.
“Why do you wish that?” he asked quietly. “I thought you had been so happy here, and you have certainly done well—far, far better than Tom.”
“Ah, poor Tom! What have you done with him and with all the others?” she asked, catching at anything which seemed as if it might put off for a minute the necessity of explaining to her father her trouble about the Lamb Bursary.
Dr. Sedgewick laughed, and to her great relief there was real amusement in the sound. “We all agreed—and there were fifteen of us to agree, mark you—that we had absolute confidence in Dr. Cameron’s methods in dealing with boys. We felt the affair was a problem we would rather leave him to solve free-handed, and we have left their punishment to him. They are all to return next term, and he will decide on what course to take with them.”
“Won’t they be punished in any way now?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, in a way, I suppose,” he answered. “They will, of course, lose all conduct marks, because they were acting in known defiance of regulations—that goes without saying. The great majority of us were in favour of flogging, but our suggestion met with no encouragement from the Head. He told us there were some things for which flogging was a real cure, but gambling was not one of them. The only real and lasting cure for gambling was to lift the boy to a higher level of thought and outlook—in short, to fill his life so full of worthier things that the love of gambling should be fairly crowded out. He argued, too, that if it were crowded out in youth, it would not have much chance to develop later on in life.”
“It sounds like common sense,” said Dorothy, turning a little on her pillow, and looking at the shaded night lamp as if the softened glow might show her a clear way through her own problems. Then she asked, with a timid note in her voice, “So you are not being anxious about Tom any more?”
“I did not say that,” Dr. Sedgewick answered quickly. “You know, Dorothy, a doctor never gives up hope while there is life in a patient; so one should never give up hope of recovery of one suffering from—what shall I call it?—spiritual disease. We will say that Tom has shown a tendency to disease. But checked in its first stages—arrested in development—he may be entirely cured before he reaches full manhood. That is what I am hoping, and what those other fathers are hoping and believing too. We feel that the discipline of school is the best medicine for them at the present stage, and that is why we are so content to leave the whole business in the hands of Dr. Cameron.”
Dorothy lay silent for a minute or two, and again her eyes sought the soft glow from the lamp. Then making a desperate effort, she made her plunge. “Daddy,” she whispered, catching at his hand and resting her cheek upon it, “Daddy, I have got a trouble—a real, hefty-sized trouble.”
“I know you have,” he answered gravely, and then he sat silent, waiting for her to speak.