Motioning with her hand for them to sit down again, the Head took the chair vacated for her by Miss Groome, and sitting down began to talk to them, not as if they were schoolgirls merely, but as woman to woman, telling them of her difficulty, and appealing to their sense of honour to help her out of her present perplexity.
“I am very concerned for the honour of the school,” she said, and there was a thrill of feeling in her voice which found an echo in the hearts of the listeners. “This morning the prefect on duty for the study floor found a pile of books lying partly on the table and partly on the floor in No. 1 study. Lying open on the table, partly under the other books, was a torn and dirty Latin key. The books were the property of Dorothy Sedgewick, who had been the last to leave the study overnight. The matter was reported to Miss Groome, who brought the book to me; and I, as you know, sent for Dorothy to come to me directly after breakfast. Dorothy says she has never used a key, and that she had never seen that ragged old book. She declares that it was not among her books overnight. When being frightened by some one stealthily trying to enter her room, she rose from her seat, and staying only to turn off the electric light, bolted for the dorm, and went to bed. Miss Groome says she has always found Dorothy straight in her work and truthful in her speech. This being so, we are bound to believe her statement when she says she has never seen that book, and that she has never used a key. But as books do not walk about on their own feet, we have to discover who put that book among Dorothy’s things. Can any of you give me any information on the mystery, or tell me anything which might lead to it being cleared up?”
There was dead silence among the girls. In fact, the hush was so deep that they could hear a violin wailing in the distant music-room, a chamber supposed to be sound-proof.
When the pause had lasted quite a long time, Hazel asked if she might speak.
“I am waiting for some of you to begin,” replied the Head, smiling at Hazel, though in truth her heart beat a little faster. Hazel had always been a pupil to be proud of, and it was unthinkable that she should be mixed up in a thing of this sort.
“There was no book ragged and dirty among Dorothy’s things when we went to bed. There could not have been a book of that sort in the room during the evening, for we had all been turning our books out and tidying them in readiness to start the fresh week of work. It was not more than twenty minutes after we had come down to bed that Dorothy came rushing down to the dorm, looking white and frightened. She was shaking so badly that she could hardly stand. I helped her to bed; but I don’t think she slept well, as she had nightmare, and woke most of us with her groaning and crying—she had plainly had a very bad scare. I have had a lot to do with her since the term began, and I have never known her say anything that was not true; she does not even exaggerate, as some girls do.”
The brow of the Head cleared, her heart registered only normal beats, and she said with a smile, “I am very glad for what you have said, Hazel. Schoolgirls have a way of sticking together in a passive way, keeping silent when they know that one is in the wrong, and that sort of thing; but it is wholly refreshing, and a trifle unusual in my experience, for them to bear testimony to each other’s uprightness as you have done.”
Dorothy’s head drooped now. It was one thing to hold it high in conscious innocence, when she was the suspected of all, but it broke down her self-control to hear Hazel testifying to her truthfulness.
Margaret, who was sitting at the next desk, turned suddenly and gripped Dorothy’s hand across the narrow dividing space, and Dorothy suddenly felt it was worth while to be in trouble, to find that she had the friendship of these two girls.
“Has any other girl anything to say?” asked the Head sweetly, and she looked from one to the other, as if she would read the very thoughts that were passing through their heads.