“It isn’t at all impossible for me to try, and I mean to try. How dare you even to presume that I have done anything wrong?”
“Very well, Kitty, you can please yourself; but I certainly intend to please myself. I am not going to try, and I think any girl in this room who dares to try, knowing in her heart of hearts what has happened—oh, you needn’t tell me, I am not quite a fool—knowing in her heart of hearts what has happened, is indeed unworthy. Kitty, you may try, but you won’t succeed; you may try, but I don’t think I’d imperil my immortal soul for a trifle of that sort! Girls, I have nothing more to say to any of you; you can go your own way. That’s all. I am very sorry.”
She turned and left the room, and the girls stared after her. There was a pause, a long, uncomfortable pause. All of a sudden Grace burst out crying. It was Grace’s rather loud sobs which awakened the sort of trance which fell over the girls.
Kitty sprang to her feet. “Now, look here, Gracie, you don’t intend to go on in that silly way because a girl like that common, poor, good-for-nothing creature chooses to set herself up against us! She can’t do us any harm; the only thing she’ll effect will be that, in all probability, suspicion will be fastened on her. I mean it to be fastened on her too. I shall see about it; it isn’t at all impossible. No, I shall say nothing at the present moment, but I’ll say something presently. You wait and see—you wait and see.”
With these words Kitty stretched herself, yawned, and left the sitting-room. The other girls looked at one another. Grace had now stopped crying.
“I didn’t like it a bit,” said Sophia.
“Nor I,” said Grace.
“Nor I,” said Anne.
“I wish,” said Sophia, “I was as brave as Hannah. I respect Hannah more than I ever thought I could respect any one.”
“I wish one thing,” said Grace, “and it is this—that Kitty hadn’t such a fearful hold over me.”