The others bent forward to see the precious wig, and Top Self was quick to make one more effort.
"What a little thing to make such a tremendous fuss about! No one has seen you—just slip off again to your post, and when Josephine tells you about it you can take your share of the blame then—Miss Marlowe doesn't want to be bothered with any one else confessing to something that's all over with now—why, it will even look like pretending to be too honest if you interrupt her now—"
Top Self probably had any number of arguments besides; these flashed through her mind in a second, but Deep-Down Self answered them in a most wonderful way and just as quickly. Thinking about it afterwards, Judith couldn't understand how the most important thing that had happened to her during the whole year could have occurred in a second or two, and she found it very difficult to put into words, even for herself, just how Deep-Down Self had conquered. It seemed as if suddenly those who stood for the best and finest things in York Hill rose in her mind and confronted Top Self—Catherine, Nancy, Josephine, Eleanor, Miss Marlowe, Miss Ashwell, Miss Meredith—and when Judith had seen them she turned again to Top Self—but Top Self had gone!
It had only taken a second of time, but even in that second fresh tragedy had been added. The wig was a beautiful golden blonde!
"Quick, give me the powder," Miss Marlowe was saying. "Somebody get the charcoal; we'll have to streak it a bit to make it grey."
Judith managed to get charcoal before any one else, and then said desperately,
"It's my fault as much as Josephine's, Miss Marlowe—more mine, for Patricia told me to be sure to remind Josephine."
"You, Judith?" said Miss Marlowe coldly. "I am surprised,"—and she wasted no more time on Judith, who went away feeling that she could never be happy again.
Judith didn't go back to Nancy, she wanted to be alone. Her humiliation was very real—not because she had forgotten, though it had hurt her pride to think that she had been careless. But there was a deeper hurt than that—she had actually hesitated to take her share of the blame, in spite of precept and example in her home, and here this year at York Hill. She had almost done something quite dishonourable.
"They'd despise me if they knew," thought Judith, crouching down behind some scenery and wishing that she could run away instead of waiting to help. "Why, oh, why do I make so many mistakes and fail so often? But I won't—I won't let that horrid little Top Self conquer"—and, interested in the working of her own mind, she paused a moment to consider how curious it was that all those faces should rise to aid her just when she needed them—"Seemed almost as if they were Deep-Down Self—but of course they couldn't be, because that's me—but it's queer—they seemed like a part of me too—"