“I think, my dear madam,” said Mr Everard to Mrs Willis, “that you must believe your pupil. She has not refused to confess to you from any stubbornness, but from, the simple reason that she has nothing to confess. I am firmly convinced that things are as she stated them, Mrs Willis. There is a mystery here which we neither of us can explain, but which we must unravel.”
Then Mrs Willis and the clergyman had a long and anxious talk together. It lasted for a long time, and some of its results at least were manifest the next morning, for, just before the morning’s work began, Mrs Willis came to the large school-room, and, calling Annie Forest to her side, laid her hand on the young girl’s shoulder.
“I wish to tell you all, young ladies,” she said, “that I completely and absolutely exonerate Annie Forest from having any part in the disgraceful occurrence which took place in this school-room a short time ago. I allude, of course, as you all know, to the book which was found tampered with in Cecil Temple’s desk. Some one else in this room is guilty, and the mystery has still to be unravelled, and the guilty girl has still to come forward and declare herself. If she is willing at this moment to come to me here, and fully and freely confess her sin, I will quite forgive her.”
The head-mistress paused, and, still with her hand on Annie’s shoulder, looked anxiously down the long room. The love and forgiveness which she felt shone in her eyes at this moment. No girl need have feared aught but tenderness from her just then.
No one stirred; the moment passed, and a look of sternness returned to the mistress’s fine face.
“No,” she said, in her emphatic and clear tones, “the guilty girl prefers waiting until God discovers her sin for her. My dear, whoever you are, that hour is coming, and you cannot escape from it. In the meantime, girls, I wish you all to receive Annie Forest as quite innocent. I believe in her, so does Mr Everard, and so must you. Anyone who treats Miss Forest except as a perfectly innocent and truthful girl incurs my severe displeasure. My dear, you may return to your seat.”
Annie, whose face was partly hidden by her curly hair during the greater part of this speech, now tossed it back, and raised her brown eyes with a look of adoration in them to her teacher. Mrs Willis’s face, however, still looked harassed. Her eyes met Annie’s, but no corresponding glow was kindled in them; their glance was just, calm, but cold.
The childish heart was conscious of a keen pang of agony, and Annie went back to her lessons without any sense of exultation.
The fact was this: Mrs Willis’s judgment and reason had been brought round by Mr Everard’s words, but in her heart of hearts, almost unknown to herself, there still lingered a doubt of the innocence of her wayward and pretty pupil. She said over and over to herself that she really now quite believed in Annie Forest, but then would come those whisperings from her pained and sore heart.
“Why did she ever make a caricature of one who has been as a mother to her? If she made one caricature, could she not make another? Above all things, if she did not do it, who did?”