Lila’s expression changed from the pained sympathy of friendship to the scientific zeal of character study. “Girls, have you noticed Mary Winchester lately? It is the strangest thing! She seems more alone and alien than ever. The girls avoid her as if she had the plague. In the library and the corridor to-day it was as plain as could be. They stop talking when she comes around. They watch her all the time though they try not to let her know it. Of course, she couldn’t help feeling it. They point her out to each other, and raise their brows and whisper after she has passed. She moves on with her head up and her mouth set tight. Her manners are worse than ever.”
“When I met her this morning, she looked right through me and didn’t see anything there, I reckon,” said I, “and, oh, Lila, you were mistaken about her borrowing your skates without leave. It was Martha who had them that morning. In rushing to class she got mixed up and threw them in at the wrong door, that’s all. Our example is corrupting the infant.”
Berta forgot her aching thumb. “Something is wrong. Mary’s eyes are those of a hunted creature. Driven into a corner. Everybody against her. I wonder——”
Robbie Belle walked slowly into the room, her clothes dripping with water.
“Mary Winchester fell into the lake,” she said, “you did it.”
In the silence I heard Berta draw a long sigh. Then she dropped her hammer.
“She broke through the ice,” added Robbie Belle.
“But the ice is rotten. How did she get on it?” asked my voice.
“She walked,” answered Robbie Belle, “I saw her.” Then she crossed over to Berta, put both arms around her neck, hid her face against her shoulder, and began to shake all over. “I helped pull her out, and she fought me—she fought——”
At that moment little Martha, our freshman roommate, came running in. “That queer girl jumped into the lake. I saw them carrying her to the infirmary. She did it because everybody knows her father is in the penitentiary. They heard about it at the skating carnival. Her brother is an outlaw too——”