CHAPTER XI
At school next morning Jessie Ross ran up to Davey, her fair plaits flying.
"I'm to go home with you after school, Davey Cameron," she cried eagerly. "My mother wants your mother to give her the recipe for making cough-mixture out of gum leaves."
"All right," said Davey.
It was a very dismal morning in the school-room. The Schoolmaster's face was dark with displeasure, and it was a very sullen, drooping Deirdre who took her seat beside Davey.
"After school I'm going to drive over to see your mother, Davey," Mr. Farrel said. "I must ask her pardon for what happened last night. I am grieved and ashamed beyond measure that Deirdre—"
His look of reproach went into Deirdre's heart. With a wailing cry she burst into tears again.
Davey, after his first glance at her, kept his eyes on his book; he tried not to see her, or hear her sobbing beside him. His heart was hot against Mr. Farrel. For, after all, it was because she loved the Schoolmaster so much and could not bear to be separated from him that Deirdre was crying like this, he told himself. It was hard that Mr. Farrel should be angry with her as well as everybody else when she had made everybody angry with her on his account.
But the sight of Deirdre's grief was more than the Schoolmaster could bear either. He lifted her out of her seat and carried her off to the far end of the room. He sat there with her on his knee talking to her for awhile. Once Davey glanced in their direction; but he looked away quickly. He had seen tears on the Schoolmaster's lean, swarthy cheeks and Deirdre's face lifted to his with a penitent radiance, and tear-wet eyes, shining. The joy of being folded into his love again had banished the desolation and bleak misery from her face.