“I did not want to,” replied Nan.
“Well, you were very silly. Now, dear, I am going to bathe your poor ankle and bind it up.”
This was done very skilfully. Nan’s foot was supported on a chair; and soon, had it not been for the dead rat, and for the fact that she was concealing the truth, she might have been almost happy.
CHAPTER X.—A MYSTERY.
All in good time Nan’s foot got better, but for a week she was kept away from school, and during that week Augusta contrived to rivet her chains. At the end of that time she was able to walk again, and, to her own infinite relief, she went back to school. She learnt her lessons just as carefully as ever; she was pronounced by her teachers to be a remarkably clever and intelligent child; but there was a change in her face. It had not the look that it had worn when first she had come to the Richmonds’, but in some respects its expression was even sadder. Then it was just grief, absolute and terrible, for the loss of her mother; now there was a new expression in the frank eyes and sensitive lips, which puzzled those who looked at her. In process of time Kitty had got over the death of Pip. Her affections were deep, and nothing would induce her to talk about the rat; but she was a merry and happy child in other respects. She would not have a rat again, she said—at least, not for a very long time; but she attended to her mice, and looked after Nora’s rat, and saw that the dogs and kittens were comfortable, and that Polly had a good time in her cage. Not the faintest gleam of suspicion attached itself to Nan. Jack’s share in the death of Pip was likely to remain a secret to the end of time; so also was the true story of Nan’s sprained foot. But what ailed Nan herself? Kitty remarked on the change in her one day to Nora.
“She is not a bit the same, and I cannot make out what is wrong with her,” she said. “Do you think by any chance, Noney, that Augusta has anything to do with it?”
“Oh no!” replied Nora. “Augusta is a very nice girl, and she is extremely fond of Nan: she often says so.”
“Well, I am not quite so sure,” replied Kitty. “I saw her two days ago”——
“Yes; what did you see two days ago?”
“I do not like to tell tales, but I came into the schoolroom quite unexpectedly. I slipped away, and no one saw.”