It was the most difficult task she had ever undertaken to perform. Exasperated beyond measure, Mr. La Salle at first utterly refused to consider her plea. He could not find it within his heart to forgive his daughter. He was bent on punishing her with the utmost severity and her latest defiance of him served to strengthen his determination. Marjorie’s repeated assertion that by her confession Mignon had already proved her sincerity of purpose appeared to carry small weight.
“You do not know this ungrateful one as I, her father, know her,” was his incensed retort. “Often she has promised the good behavior, but only promised. Never has she fulfilled the word. How then can she expect that I shall forgive and believe her?”
“But this time Mignon will keep her word,” returned Marjorie with gentle insistence. “I am sure that if her mother were living she would forgive and believe. No matter what I had done, my mother would forgive me. If I were truly sorry she would believe in me, too. You are nearest of all in the world to Mignon. Won’t you try to overlook the past and let her come back to the senior class? Whatever else displeases you in her, she has at least been successful in her studies. She stands high in all her classes. She is Professor Fontaine’s most brilliant pupil in French. It does seem hard that she should have to give up now what she has so nearly won.”
Without realizing it, Marjorie had advanced a particularly effective argument. Mignon’s high standing in her various classes during her high school career had always afforded her father signal pleasure. Thus reminded, paternal pride awoke and struggled against anger. Marjorie’s reference to Mignon’s mother had also touched him deeply.
Following her earnest little speech, a brief interval of silence ensued, during which Mr. La Salle stared gloomily at his weeping daughter. Moved by a sudden rush of pity for his motherless girl, he walked over to her and rested a forgiving hand on her diminished head. Very gently he addressed her in his native tongue. Marjorie felt a rush of unbidden tears rise to her own eyes, when the next instant she became witness to a tender reconciliation which she never forgot.
It was nearer two hours than one before she prepared to say good night to the two for whom she had done so much. Brought at last to a state of sympathetic understanding such as they had never before known, father and daughter were loath to part from this sincere, lovely young girl. To Mr. La Salle’s proposal to see her safely to the house where her mother awaited her, Marjorie made gracious refusal. She was anxious to get away by herself. The whole affair had been extremely nerve-racking and she longed for the bracing atmosphere of the outdoors as an antidote to the strain she had undergone.
She was visited by a feeling of intense impatience when, stepping into the hall, accompanied by Mignon and her father, the former humbly asked her to delay her departure for a moment. Leaving her, Mignon sped up the front stairs, returning almost instantly. Announcing to her father her wish to go with Marjorie as far as the gate, the now smiling man saw his guest as far as the veranda and retired into the house.
“I have something to give you,” began Mignon, as they started down the walk. “It’s—that——” she faltered briefly “——that letter Lucy Warner wrote you. I found it in the locker room. I saw it fall out of your blouse—and—I—took it—and—read it. I know it was wrong. Then I kept it. I was angry—because you wouldn’t tell me about you and Lucy that day at Miss Archer’s. I—made—Lucy think you had told me about it. She wouldn’t believe it, so I said, ‘What about the Observer?’ She thought I knew something I didn’t know at all. I had no idea what ‘the Observer’ meant. To-morrow I shall go to her and tell her so,” she continued bravely. “I’m sorry for all the hateful things I’ve done to you and said about you. You are the finest, truest girl in the whole world, Marjorie Dean. You’ve done something for me to-night that I’ll remember and be grateful to you for as long as I live. There’s not much left of my senior year but I am going to try to make my last days in Sanford High count. Some day I hope I can prove to you that I am worthy of your friendship. But not yet.” With this she shoved the troublesome letter into Marjorie’s limp hand.
Bereft for the moment of speech, Marjorie clutched the letter, wondering again whether she were actually awake, or living in a queer dream. Mignon’s revelation had laid the last ghost. She had untied the final knot in the tangle of her own making. More, she had given the best possible proof of sincere repentance. “Mignon,” it was now Marjorie’s voice that trembled, “you’ve already proved yourself my friend. I’m glad for your sake and Lucy’s and mine that you were so brave as to tell me about the letter and return it to me. All I can say is: Let us forget and be friends.”