If, on the other hand, Mrs. Weatherbee sent for Judith, Norma and herself that evening and exonerated Judith in the presence of her enemies, Jane determined that she would not, even in that event, withhold the story of Marian's long-continued persecution of herself and her friends. Undoubtedly Marian and Maizie would be asked to leave Madison Hall; perhaps college as well. Mrs. Weatherbee would be sufficiently shocked and incensed to carry the affair higher. Jane hoped that she would. She had reached a point where she had become merciless.
While Jane was darkly considering her course of action, Mrs. Weatherbee was finding Monday a most amazingly exciting day. The morning mail brought her Edith's letter. Directly afterward she hailed Dorothy Martin as the latter left the dining-room and marched Dorothy to her office for a private talk. When it ended, Dorothy had missed her first recitation. Mrs. Weatherbee, however, had learned a number of things, hitherto unguessed by her.
Shortly after luncheon a meek-eyed, plainly dressed little woman was ushered into her office. In her mittened hands the stranger carried a package. Sight of it caused the matron to stare. Her wonder grew as the woman handed it to her.
"If you please, ma'am," blurted forth the stranger, red with embarrassment, "I hope you won't feel hard towards me. I know I oughtta come to you before. My husband found this here package in a rubbish can. He works for the town, collectin' rubbish. He found it jus' before Christmas and brung it home t' me.
"You c'n see for yourself how the name o' the party it was to go to had been all run together, so's you can't read it. The package got wet, I guess. But your name's plain enough up in the corner. I knowed I ought ta brung it here first thing, but I—I—opened it. I knowed I hadn't oughtta. Then I seen this pretty silk sack and I wanted it terrible.
"I says to myself as how I was goin' to keep it. It wasn't my fault if you throwed it into the rubbish can by mistake. My husband he said I hadda right to it, 'cause findin' was keepin'. So I kep' it, but it made me feel bad. I was brung up honest and I knowed it was the same as stealin'.
"But I wanted it terrible, jus' the same. I never see anything han'somer, an' it looked swell on me. I put it on jus' once for a minute. It didn't give me no pleasure, though. I felt jus' sneaky an' mean. After that I put it away. Once in a while I took a look at it. Then my little girl got a bad cold. She was awful sick. I forgot all about the sack. She pretty near died. I sat up with her nights for quite a while. When she got better I thought about the sack again, and knowed that God had come down hard on me for bein' a thief. So I jus' got ready an' brung it back. It ain't hurt a mite, an' I hope you won't make me no trouble, 'cause I've had enough."
Mrs. Weatherbee's feelings can be better imagined than described. The return of the missing sweater at the critical moment was sufficiently astounding, not to mention the pathetic little confession that accompanied its return. She felt nothing save intense sympathy for her humble caller.
When the latter took her leave a few moments later, she went away wiping her eyes. Far from making her any "trouble," Mrs. Weatherbee had treated her with the utmost gentleness. The stately, white-haired woman with the "proud face" had not only thanked her for returning the "sack," she had asked for her humble caller's address and expressed her intention of sending the little sick girl a cheer-up present.
Left alone, Mrs. Weatherbee sat smiling rather absently at the dainty blue and white bit of knitting which she had taken from its wrapper. She thought she understood very well how it had happened to stray into the rubbish can. She now recalled that the rubbish cans about Chesterford and at the edge of the campus were much the shape and size of the package boxes used by the postal service. Given a dark, rainy night and an absent-minded messenger, the result was now easy to anticipate. Here was proof piled high of Judith Stearns' "fatal failing."