“It’s your fault! I’m sure I didn’t want to go in! I tried to make you go home. You can’t say I didn’t. If you hadn’t kept talking about the shield, I would never——”
Stella burst into furious crying.
“And now, scarlet fever! And I lifted it up and carried it. And it’s got spots. And that stuffy tent! And ... I’ve never had scarlet fever!”
“Do you mean to say that the baby wasn’t—being hurt, or anything?” inquired Margot slowly.
“Oh!” Stella was sobbing outright. She could answer no question with regard to the baby. “And I’ll miss the match, even if I don’t get fever. For I’m sure I’ll have to be in quarantine for ages. Oh, come home to mother quick! Oh!” finished up Stella, too miserable to remember points of etiquette, “I wish I hadn’t asked you to tea!”
Margot, also, wished the same wish, as, miserably conscious of her shortcomings, she faced a scandalized Mrs. Hill and listened to Stella’s sobbing account of the recent escapade, while she mentally agreed with Stella that it certainly was all her own (Margot’s) fault. She wished the same wish all the way back to school, whither she was instantly dispatched. “For you had better not stay here, and not come near Stella, since she’s probably caught it already, you see. What? You’ve had it? Well, of course, that is very fortunate for you; but for poor Stella there will certainly be ten days’ quarantine at least! Go straight to Miss Slater,” continued the harassed Mrs. Hill, “and tell her—everything. What it must be to be a head mistress when even a beautiful thing like a prize for bravery can put such dreadful mischief into children’s heads, I don’t know!” concluded the rector’s wife.
“It wasn’t—because of the bravery prize that I did it. I’d have done it—if there hadn’t ever been a bravery prize,” blurted out Margot; “and I’m most dreadfully sorry. And if there’s anything I can do?”
Do! She had done enough already. Mrs. Hill hurried indoors without delay to find carbolic, and hardly heard the last strains of Margot’s fervent apologies.
There was carbolic, too, for Margot, when she reached the Cliff School with her confession. Also a week-end of nights spent in the fastness of the San. But first of all an interview with Miss Slater.
“You, yourself, Margot, have not run any risk whatever, I think and hope; under the circumstances, though, we will take certain precautions. But Stella certainly must not return for ten days; though I hope she will not miss the match.” The head mistress looked at Margot’s flushed and unhappy face.