Belinda was good to her; and long after the girl was asleep, the Youngest Teacher lay awake, puzzling over problems of right and wrong, of duty and impulse, of justice and mercy.
"They are only children," she said from her pinnacle of two-and-twenty years.
"But children's hurts are hard to bear while they last," her heart answered promptly.
"Perhaps I was all wrong. Probably I ought to have been more severe—but now I've promised"—and Belinda was asleep.
The next morning the incomparable Augustus had disappeared from the horizon. The faithful James, attired in a sporty new suit, new shoes and necktie, and looking astonishingly well and prosperous for a man who reported himself as just back from the gates of death, was once more in his accustomed place.
"James is a good soul, but Augustus had so much more resourcefulness and initiative," said Miss Lucilla regretfully.
"He had," agreed Belinda.
CHAPTER VII
THE PASSING OF AN AFFINITY