“I didn’t know Miss Cairns and Miss Weyman had come back until I happened to pass them in the upstairs hall,” Muriel said.
“They were here for a couple of days before Leila knew it, and she generally knows who is back and who isn’t. Miss Remson told Leila she didn’t know it herself until the next day after they arrived. The two of them came back together on the night we were serenaded. They simply walked into the house and went to their rooms. She didn’t see them until noon the next day.” It was Veronica who delivered this information.
“Did Miss Remson say anything to them on account of it?” questioned Muriel.
“No; she wasn’t pleased, but she said she thought it best to ignore it. It was just one more discourtesy on their part.”
“That accounts for our meeting Miss Sayres on the veranda.” Lucy’s greenish eyes had grown speculative. “She had been calling on those two. We spoke of it after she passed, you will remember. Leila said ‘No,’ they had not come back yet. We wondered on whom she had been calling at the Hall. While we can’t prove that it was Miss Cairns and Miss Weyman she had come to see, that would be the natural conclusion,” Lucy summed up with the gravity of a lawyer.
“I object, your honor. The evidence is too fragmentary to be considered,” put in Muriel in mannish tones. She bowed directly to Marjorie.
“Court’s adjourned. I have nothing to say.” Marjorie laughed and pushed back her chair from the table. “I’m not making light of what you said, Lucy.” She turned to the latter. “I was only funning with Muriel. I think as you do. Still none of us can prove it.”
“I wish the whole thing would be cleared up before those girls are graduated and gone from Hamilton,” Katherine Langly said almost vindictively. “I wouldn’t care if it made a lot of trouble for them all. Miss Remson has stood so much from them and she still feels so hurt at Doctor Matthews’ unjust treatment of her. I can’t believe he wrote that letter. She believes it.”
“I don’t see how she can in face of all the contemptible things the Sans have done,” asserted Jerry.
“She believes it because she says he signed the letter, so he must have written it. I told her the signature might be a forgery. She said ‘No, it could hardly be that.’ I saw she was set on that point, so I didn’t argue it further.”