"My dear, how could it have been to do with Jem. I don't understand."
The girl's eyes filled with tears.
"I scarcely like to tell you," she said, "it was so hateful of me. And yet I don't know that you would have advised me to do anything else. I remember you once told me you thought it might be right of me to run away from him."
"You are talking enigmas. That young man you told me about could not possibly have been at the concert. You are dreaming, my dear."
Miss Gregson began to wonder if the strain of the concert had been too much for the girl.
"Jem was there," said Meg; "he was standing in among the trees of the plantation all the time, but I never saw him till I sang 'The Last Rose of Summer.' I wish, oh how I wish I had never sung it; I shall never sing it again as long as I live."
"Are you sure you didn't imagine you saw him?" inquired Miss Gregson with concern.
"No. I know it was Jem, and when he came towards me I ran away: it was hateful, hateful of me; and yet I just believe that I'd do it right over again. I don't want Jem. I couldn't leave you all."
Sheila's voice was heard calling in the garden.
"I must go," said Meg hurriedly. "But I feel sure Sheila will understand and forgive when she knows. She would never let me have anything to do with Jem—I know she wouldn't." Miss Gregson watched the girl hastily making her way into the garden and sighed.