“Yes, I remember.” The Head smiled in a reassuring fashion. “Mrs. Wilson was an old friend of your father’s, I think?”
“Yes; she used to know him when he was a medical student. She said that he and his cousin, Arthur Sedgewick, with two others named Bagnall, were a very wild lot; they did all sorts of harum-scarum things. They were coming home from a dance one night, and father was driving a cab that was racing another cab. Father’s cab collided with a police wagonette, which was badly smashed up, and an old woman was hurt. For that father had to go to prison for a fortnight.” It was out now—out with a vengeance. Dorothy fairly gasped at her own daring in telling the story.
The Head looked blank. “This was not pleasant hearing for you, of course. Still, I do not see how it affects your standing.”
“Oh! don’t you remember the rules that were read out at the enrolment ceremony?” cried Dorothy, with a bright spot of pink showing in both her white cheeks. “It was read out that no girl was eligible whose parents had at any time been in prison.”
“Of course; but I had forgotten.” There was a shocked note in the tone of the Head, her eyes grew very troubled, and she sat for a moment in silence.
A moment was it? To Dorothy it seemed more like a year—a whole twelve months—of strained suffering.
“Dorothy, are you quite sure—quite absolutely sure—that this is a fact?” Miss Arden asked, breaking the silence.
Choking back a sob, Dorothy bowed her head. Speech was almost impossible just then. But the Head was waiting for a detailed answer, and she had to speak. “Mrs. Wilson was there—she was in the cab—so she must certainly have known all about it. She told the story to me as if it were a good joke.”
“You have been home since then—did you speak of this to your father and mother?” The Head was looking so worried, so actually careworn, that Dorothy suddenly found it easier to speak.
“I tried to ask my mother about it, but she would not discuss it with me.” Dorothy’s tone became suddenly frigid, as if it had taken on her mother’s attitude.