"Yours sorrowfully,
"Marjorie."
When she had finished, the all-too-ready tears had again flooded her eyes and dropped unrestrained upon the green blotting pad on her desk. After a little she slowly wiped her eyes, and, without reading what she had written, folded the letter, addressed and stamped it. Slipping into her coat, she wound a silken scarf about her head and went downstairs.
"I'm going out to the mailbox, Mother," she called, as she passed the living-room door.
"Very well," returned Mrs. Dean, abstractedly. She was deep in her book and did not glance up, for which Marjorie was thankful. If her mother noticed her reddened eyelids, explanations would necessarily follow.
The next day dragged interminably. Even the usual pleasure of going shopping with her captain could not mitigate the pain of yesterday's shocking discovery. To Marjorie the bare idea of theft was abhorrent. When, at the Hallowe'en dance, Mignon had accused Constance of taking her bracelet, Marjorie's wrath at the insult to her friend had been righteous and sweeping.
That night, as she sat opposite her mother in the living-room trying to read one of the books she had received for Christmas the incident of the missing bracelet and Mignon's accusation suddenly loomed up in her mind like an unwelcome specter. Suppose Mignon had been right, after all. Jerry had openly asserted that she did not believe Mignon had really lost her bracelet, and in her anger Marjorie had secretly agreed with the stout girl. Suppose Constance had taken it. What if she were one of those persons one reads of in books whom continued poverty had made dishonest, or perhaps she was a kleptomaniac? The last idea, though unpleasant to contemplate, was not so repugnant to her as the first; but she did not believe it to be true. Constance's partial confession, coupled with her ready tears, was positive proof that she had been conscious of her act of theft. There was only one other theory left; she had found the pin and succumbed to the temptation of keeping it. Yet Constance had always averred that she did not care for jewelry, and would not wear it if she possessed it.
Marjorie went over these suppositions again and again, but each time her theories ended with the bitter fact that, in spite of her tears, Constance had kept her ill-gotten bauble.
The vacation which had promised so much, and which she had happily supposed would be all too short, seemed endless. During the long days that followed she received no word from the girl in the little gray house. If Constance had received her letter, she made no sign, and this served to add to Marjorie's belief in her unworthiness.
Jerry Macy's New Year's party proved a welcome relief from the hateful experience through which she had passed. Although invited, Constance was not among the merry gathering of young people, and Jerry loudly lamented the fact. Mr. Stevens and Uncle John Roland, who furnished the music for the dancing, greeted Marjorie with affectionate regard. It was evident that they knew nothing of what had transpired. Constance was ill, her father reported, but hoped to be able to return to school on Tuesday. He thanked Marjorie for her remembrance of him and Charlie, and Uncle John forgot himself and repeated everything after him with grateful nods and smiles.
During the evening Marjorie frequently found herself near the two musicians, and Lawrence Armitage, secretly disappointed because of Constance's absence, also did considerable loitering in their immediate vicinity. If the troubled little lieutenant had had nothing on her mind, she would have spent a most delightful evening, for the Macy's enormous living-room had been transformed into a veritable ballroom, where the guests might dance without bumping elbows at every turn, while Hal and Jerry were the most hospitable entertainers.