Now she knew where she stood, and it was with a feeling of acute relief that she set herself to the business of finding out the source from which that torn book came. The first thing to do was to have a talk with Miss Groome. Her lip curled scornfully as she recalled the terror displayed by the Form-mistress. Of what good was higher education for women if it left them a prey to superstitious fears such as might have oppressed poor women who had no education at all?
A big hockey match was engrossing the attention of every one during the last week in November. It was big in the sense of being very important, for they were to play against the girls of the Ilkestone High School, and the prestige of the school with regard to hockey would hang on the issue of the game.
It was the only game Dorothy played at all well; she was good at centring, and she was not to be beaten for speed. The games-mistress wanted her for outside right, and Dora Selwyn, who was captain, agreed to this. But she exacted such an amount of practice from poor Dorothy in the days that came before the one that was fixed for the match that other work had to suffer, and she had to face the prospect of her school position going down still lower.
Never once since that affair of finding the torn book among her things had Dorothy been able to reach the fourth place in her Form. The next week she had been fifth again, with Rhoda once more above her, and the week after that she had suffered most fearfully at finding Joan Fletcher also above her. All this was so unaccountable to her because she knew that she was working just as hard as before.
Sometimes she was inclined to think she was being downed by circumstances. She was like a person being sucked down in a quagmire—the more she struggled the lower down she went.
Of course this was silly, and she told herself that despair never led anywhere but to failure.
Her keenest trouble was that she knew herself to be, by some people, a suspected person—that is to say, there were some who said that she must have used cribs in the past, which accounted for her failures now that she might be afraid to use them. There was this good in the trouble, that it made her set her teeth and strive just so that she might show them how false their suppositions were.
The reason her position had dropped was largely due to the fact that the other girls had worked so much harder. The words of the Head concerning the position of slackers had fallen on fruitful ground. No girl wanted to be looked upon as having used cribs to help her along. The others, all of them, had the advantage of being used to the work and routine of the Compton School. Dorothy, as new girl, was bound to feel the disadvantages of her position.
Rhoda Fleming had a vast capacity for work, and she had also a heavy streak of laziness in her make-up. Just now she was working for all she was worth, and the week before the hockey match she rose above Margaret, who seemed to shrink several sizes smaller in consequence. She had to bear a lot of snubbing, too, for so elated with victory was Rhoda, that she seemed quite unable to resist the temptation of sitting on Margaret whenever opportunity occurred.