“It is very pretty,” said Dorothy; then she sat down suddenly, and was dumbly thankful for the relief of being able to sit.
“What is the trouble?” asked the Head.
Her manner was so understanding that Dorothy suddenly lost her desire to run away, the furious beating of her heart subsided, and she was able to look up and speak clearly, although her words came out in a rather incoherent jumble because of her hurry to get her story told.
“I am not sure that I have any right to keep trying for the Lamb Bursary—I mean I am by honour bound to tell you everything, and then you will decide for me, and tell me what I have to do.”
“Do you mean that when you enrolled you kept something back?” asked the Head gravely. She was thinking this might be a case of having been unfit at the first, and refusing to own up to it.
“Oh no,” said Dorothy earnestly. “When I enrolled I had no idea there was anything to prevent me from becoming a candidate.”
“Then it is nothing to do with yourself personally?” There was a throb of actual relief in the heart of the Head. She was bound up in her girls; the disgrace of one of them would be her own disgrace.
“No.” Dorothy hesitated a minute; it was fearfully hard to drag out that story about her father. She had a vision of his dear careworn face just then, and it seemed to her a desecration—even an unfilial thing—to say a thing of his past which might lower him in the esteem of the Head.
“If it is not yourself, then at least you could not help it.” The Head spoke kindly, with a desire to make Dorothy’s task easier.
“Do you remember the day of the very high tide, when an accident happened on the front, and I met a lady, Mrs. Wilson, of Sevenoaks, who asked me to take tea with her at the Grand, Ilkestone, next day?” Dorothy spoke in a sort of desperate burst, anxious to get the story out as quickly as possible.