"What is it, Rose? What is the matter? Why shouldn't we have the window open on a hot night like, this?"
"Because I like it to be shut. You must put up with me as I am," said Rosamund. "I will open it if you wish in a few minutes. I have changed my mind, I am not going out. I shall go to bed. I have a severe headache."
"But wouldn't a walk in the moonlight with me, on our very last evening of freedom, take your headache away?" said Jane in a coaxing voice.
"No; I would rather not go out. You can do as you please. Only, creep in quietly when I am asleep. Don't wake me; that's all I ask."
"Oh, I'll just get into bed, dear, if you have a headache. But how suddenly it has come on!"
"This room is so stifling," she said. "After all, this is a small sort of school, and the rooms are low and by no means airy."
Jane could not help laughing.
"I never heard you talk in such a silly way before. Why, it was you who shut the window just now. How can you expect, on a hot summer's evening, the room to be cool with the window shut?"
"Well, fling it open—fling it open!" said Rosamund. "I don't mind."
Jane quickly did so. There was a crunching noise of steps—solitary steps—on the gravel below. Jane put out her head.