“Did you speak to your father about it?” The Head was questioning closely now in order that she might get at the very bottom of the mystery.
“Oh, I could not!” There was sharp pain in Dorothy’s tone; her father was her hero—the very best and bravest, the very dearest of men. Something of this she had to make clear to the Head if she could, and she went on, her voice breaking a little in spite of her efforts at self-control. “Daddy is such a dear; he is so hard-working; he is always sacrificing himself for some one or doing something to help some one—I just could not tell him of that awful old story. He would have felt so bad, too, because he kept urging me to win the Lamb Bursary if I could.”
“Did you tell him of that rule—that stupid, foolish rule—about no one being eligible whose parents had been in prison?” asked the Head.
Dorothy put out her hands as if to ward off a blow. “Oh, I could not! Why, it would have broken his heart to think that any action of his in the past was to bar my way in the future. I did tell mother about it.”
“What did she say?” The insistent questioning of the Head was beginning to get on Dorothy’s nerves; then, too, it was so unpleasant to be obliged to own up to the stark truth.
“Mother said nothing,” she answered dully. And then the interview became suddenly a long-drawn-out torture: she was racked and beaten until she could bear no more, while all the time she could hear the cynical words of Tom about woman having no sense of honour.
Perhaps the Head understood something of what Dorothy was feeling, for her tone was so very kind and sympathetic when she spoke.
“I think we will do nothing in the matter for a week. I will take that time to think things round. But, Dorothy, I am very specially anxious that this talk shall make no difference to your work or your striving. Go on doing your very utmost to win the Bursary. I cannot tell you what a large amount of good this hard work of the candidates is doing for the whole school. You are not working merely to maintain your own position—you are setting the pace for the others. Don’t worry about this either. Just put the thought of it away from your mind. It may be I can find a way out for you—at least I will try.”
Dorothy rose to her feet. The strain was over, and, marvel of marvels, she was still where she had been—at least for another week.