Lucy was smiling a set and bitter smile.
“Don’t you think you had better get out of this and leave me?” she asked. “Perhaps you don’t know that I have lost my badge. I shall be a dead Scout for a week, and I don’t care in the least whether I ever wear it again or not.”
Elise came close and laid a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, but the girl shook it off.
“Don’t!” she said pettishly.
“I knew that you had resigned your badge for the so small time of a week,” said Elise gently, “but one week soon passes.”
“Do you know why I lost it?” asked Lucy harshly.
“No,” said Elise, “and I do not so much care. That is for you to know, and our dear Captain. I am just so so sorry that you are unhappy. But you will be happy again. Always unhappiness goes away. We do not forget, but it ceases to wound. And if the fault makes you so unhappy, why, certainly you will never, never so do again; will you, dear Lucy?”
To her surprise and dismay, Lucy turned and, hiding her face in her arms, leaned against the cracked old wall and sobbed.
“Oh, I am unhappy!” she cried. “I am unhappy, and I don’t know what to do! Sometimes I think I will run away!”