“I have spent all the vac at Watley with Hazel. I was not very well last term,” explained Margaret. “Mother is always so busy, too, during the long hols that I am something of an embarrassment at home; so it was an all-round benefit for me to be away with Hazel.”
“I see.” Dorothy’s arm tightened a little round the slender figure of Margaret as she asked, “Then we are to be chums? I don’t want to come between Hazel and you, of course.”
“You would not,” said Margaret, glowing into actual beauty by reason of her happy confidence in her friend. “Hazel and I have plenty of room in our hearts for other friends, and even for chums. I felt you were going to be friendly, that is why I screwed my courage to make a clean breast about myself.”
“That was quite unnecessary where I am concerned, I can assure you.” Dorothy spoke earnestly and with conviction; then she asked a little uneasily, “Do you expect that Rhoda Fleming will be in our dorm?”
“No,” replied Margaret. “I am sure she will not. She will be in No. 1; it is the same size as ours, but there are better views from the windows. She was there last term, and will be certain to go back to her old place. She said she was going to leave, so we are surprised to find that she has come back for another year. Here comes matron; that means we have to go and get busy with unpacking.”
It was later that same evening, and Dorothy was standing at the window of the corridor outside the door of the dorm watching the moon making a track of silver on the distant sea, when suddenly a tall girl glided up to her out of the shadows, and gripping her by the arm, said harshly,—
“Pray, where was it that you thought you had seen me before?”
The girl was Rhoda Fleming, and Dorothy could not repress a slight shiver of fear at the malice of her tone.
“I did not think; I knew,” she answered quietly, and she was quite surprised to hear how unafraid her voice sounded.
“Well, where was it?” Rhoda fairly hissed out her question, and Dorothy shivered again, but she answered calmly enough, “It was in the showrooms of Messrs. Sharman and Song, a little before one o’clock to-day.”