"What's the matter, Rose?" asked Caroline Brant suddenly. "Don't you feel good?"
For Rose was sitting on the edge of her bed, her head bowed on her clasped hands. At Caroline's question she raised her head and looked around her miserably.
"No, I don't feel good. I—I have a headache," she said.
The girls regarded her curiously for a minute, and then forgot all about her. They had worse things than headaches to worry about.
Rose did indeed have a headache, but the headache was mostly caused by a heartache. She herself did not quite understand it.
Billie had at last been singled out from all the other girls for punishment, would perhaps be expelled from Three Towers Hall, and where she, Rose, should have been happy about it, she was only miserable.
Of course she had really had no hand in Billie's disgrace—this time. But she had planned and schemed for it before, and that made her almost as bad in her own eyes as those two wretched sneaks whom all the girls hated and despised. If they could only know what had been in her mind they would hate and despise her, too!
Her head felt hot and her lips were feverish. It was a terrible thing to despise oneself. The only way she could ever put things straight again was to find some way of getting Billie out of her scrape. She must think of a plan!
Suddenly she jumped to her feet, and the girls turned startled eyes upon her.
"I have it!" she cried. "We must get word to Miss Walters. If she could know what an awful fix we're in, she'd come right back. I'm sure she would."