“Oh, yes, of course. You lent it to me one day. Don’t you remember how you made me cry over that picture of little Alice, the over-worked factory girl? What about the book, Cecil?”
“I found the book in my desk,” said Cecil, in a steady tone, and now fixing her eyes on Annie, who knelt by her side—“I found the book in my desk, although I never keep it there; for it is quite against the rules to keep our recreation books in our school-desks, and you know, Annie, I always think it is so much easier to keep these little rules. They are matters of duty and conscience after all. I found my copy of Mrs Browning in my desk this morning with the cover torn off, and with a very painful and ludicrous caricature of our dear Mrs Willis sketched on the title-page.”
“What?” said Annie. “No, no; impossible.”
“You know nothing about it do you, Annie?”
“I never put it there, if that’s what you mean,” said Annie. But her face had undergone a curious change. Her light and easy and laughing manner had altered. When Cecil mentioned the caricature she flushed a vivid crimson. Her flush had quickly died away, leaving her olive-tinted face paler than its wont.
“I see,” she said, after a long pause, “you, too, suspected me, Cecil, and that is why you tried to conceal the thing. You know that I am the only girl in the school who can draw caricatures, but did you suppose that I would show her dishonour? Of course things look ugly for me, if this is what you found in your book; but I did not think that you would suspect me, Cecil.”
“I will believe you, Annie,” said Cecil eagerly. “I long beyond words to believe you. With all your faults, no one has ever yet found you out in a lie. If you look at me, Annie, and tell me honestly that you know nothing whatever about that caricature, I will believe you. Yes, I will believe you fully, and I will go with you to Mrs Willis and tell her that, whoever did the wrong, you are innocent in this matter. Say you know nothing about it, dear, dear Annie, and take a load off my heart.”
“I never put the caricature into your book, Cecil.”
“And you know nothing about it?”
“I cannot say that; I never—never put it in your book.”