Catherine whirled about and her dark eyes flashed. “I suppose you’d stand by and see your best friends cheated out of the prize rather than call that snobbish French girl a thief, which she is, of course, if she has copied that poem and presented it as her own.”
“We will have to prove it first, I think,” Faith replied quietly.
But Catherine, who was not at all meek, retorted: “Well, how are we going to prove it? Of course, she is too clever to copy one of Tennyson’s or any other poem with which we are all familiar. Now, I think the way for Miss Gordon to find out the truth of this matter would be to lock Marianne in a classroom and tell her she will have to stay there until she writes another poem of equal merit.”
Gladys laughed. “Poor Marianne! She would be in there for the rest of her natural life, I fear. Genius doesn’t work that way. There was a pupil here two years ago who composed music and said the inspiration came to her at the queerest hours. Once she went to the music room at three o’clock in the morning, and poor Miss Humphrey, who slept just above, was terribly frightened. She thought the music room was haunted. Maybe Marianne is the same way. Maybe she has had the one inspiration of her lifetime.”
The dark eyes of Catherine flashed toward Gladys scornfully. “Since when have you taken to championing Marianne Carnot? Perhaps you would like to be numbered among her friends, and——”
Gladys flushed and was about to retort when Joy laughingly exclaimed: “What a tempest in a teapot we are trying to brew!” Then, more seriously: “If Marianne wins the prize unfairly, her own heart will punish her. Now I suggest that we all take hands and play cartwheel on the ice until the gong rings.”
Half an hour later, flushed and warm, they were trooping back to the school when little Peggy Paterson ran out to meet them, calling: “Muriel Storm, Miss Widdemere wants you to stop at her office before you go to your room. The mail just came.”
Muriel’s heart leaped. Would there be a letter from Gene?
* * * * * * * *
There were two letters for Muriel bearing foreign postmarks. One of them was addressed in a writing strange to the girl, and she tore it open, almost with dread, but this was quickly changed to joy, for the letter was from her dear Uncle Barney.