“Oh!” said Prissie, “do you know Mr Hayes?”
“I not only know him,” replied Hammond, smiling, “but he is my uncle. I am going to see him this evening.”
“Oh!”
“Of course, I shall tell him nothing of this, but I shall probably talk of you. Have you a message for him?”
“I can send him no message to-day.”
They had now reached the college gates. Hammond took Priscilla’s hand. “Good-bye,” he said; “I believe in you, and so does Miss Oliphant. If her money was stolen, the thief was certainly not the most upright, the most sincere girl in the college. My advice to you, Miss Peel, is to hold your head up bravely, to confront this charge by that sense of absolute innocence which you possess. In the meanwhile, I have not the least doubt that the real thief will be found. Don’t make a fuss; don’t go about in wild despair—have faith in God.” He pressed her hand, and turned away.
Priscilla took her usual place that day at the luncheon table. The girls who had witnessed her wild behaviour in the morning watched her in perplexity and astonishment. She ate her food with appetite; her face looked serene—all the passion and agony had left it.
Rosalind Merton ventured on a sly allusion to the scene of the morning. Priscilla did not make the smallest comment; her face remained pale, her eyes untroubled. There was a new dignity about her.
“What’s up now?” said Rosalind, to her friend Miss Day. “Is the little Puritan going to defy us all?”
“Oh, don’t worry any more about her,” said Annie, who, for some reason, was in a particularly bad humour. “I only wish, for my part, Miss Peel had never come to St. Benet’s; I don’t like anything about her. Her heroics are as unpleasant to me as her stoicisms. But I may as well say frankly, Rosalind, before I drop this detestable subject, that I am quite sure she never stole that five-pound note: she was as little likely to do it as you, so there!”