And as though the same thought tormented Sheila the girl dropped her work and went to the old piano. It had been tuned and polished and Mrs. Quinn had draped a linen and lace square over one end of it. Sheila sat down and slowly, with a lingering touch, ran her fingers up and down the scale. Then she rose abruptly and closed the cover over the keys with a resolute bang.
"It's not half the punishment I deserve--but I did want to learn!" and bursting into tears she, rushed off to her room to fight out by herself the disappointment she must face.
And as though the day had not brought enough to "just clean tucker one out," as poor Mrs. Quinn put it, that evening, after the boys had gone to bed, Mr. Everett and Pat came to the door! Mrs. Quinn's hospitable soul was greatly distressed that she could not invite her guest into the parlor--occupied now by old Mr. Judkins at twenty-five dollars a month--but Mr. Everett declared that he could not ask for a more comfortable chair than the old rocker nor for a more cosy room! With his usual tact he made Mrs. Quinn feel that they were old acquaintances.
He told them--keeping Pat's voice out of the story with difficulty--how the arrest of John Marx had led to the rounding up of the entire band; how they had been quickly proven to be Germans and paid agents of the German government and how--although as yet the formulas had not been found and their whereabouts remained a deep mystery, it must be only a short time before they would be discovered, as some of the best secret service men in the United States were working on the case!
Mr. Everett's face looked worn and worried. Nevertheless he spoke cheerfully, as though to relieve Sheila's concern.
"And now, my dear," he concluded, "you have helped us so much in this matter I want you to tell me frankly--is there not some way in which I can show my appreciation? Is there not something you want to do? Girls like you and my Pat here have so many air castles and I would like----"
"Oh, please stop!" Sheila sprang to her feet, her face burning. "I just can't bear it! If I had done what I knew, right then, I ought to do--and told you, there at the Works--they might have been stopped--in time! But I didn't! I waited! The only way I can bear thinking about it is knowing that--I'm being punished!" Her shame-faced glance went from the piano to her mother's face. "So please don't say anything to me about----" she stopped, held by a sudden thought, and drew from the pocket of her blouse a small, flat package of tissue paper. With trembling fingers she unwrapped it and held up to view her badge of the Golden Eagle.
"I didn't live up to it! I didn't keep my Scout's honor! Mr. Everett, please, will you take it and keep it for me--until the formulas are found? I cannot wear it!"
There was no doubting the resolution in Sheila's face. The man marveled at the courage with which this mere girl inflicted upon herself the punishment she thought she deserved! In spite of a half-smothered exclamation from Pat, he took the badge, carefully re-wrapped it, and put it away in his pocket.
"Sheila, you are evidently determined not to forget this lesson! Many of us make mistakes often by hesitating to heed the voice of our conscience, but I know one girl that isn't going to let it happen again!" He patted her affectionately upon her shoulder. "I don't know," he added, enigmatically, "but that this all may not be worth more than the formulas--for us all!"