"Except to repeat my words. Star Lestrange can tell you something if she will."
"Star, dear, go at once. You know I could never accuse you of unkindness. But go, dear; I will see you in my room immediately."
Miss Peacock's own private sitting room was much admired by the girls of Penwerne Manor. It was only on rare and most special occasions that she allowed the girls of the school to visit her there. When she did it was to each and all of those girls as though they had entered into paradise. The shackles of school life seemed to fall away from them; they felt at home. All their most brilliant and most refined instincts seemed to awaken and grow stronger in Miss Peacock's presence. She was a very literary woman, highly accomplished in every sense of the word. Her knowledge of foreign languages, her knowledge of art and the best English literature, made her conversation delightful. Then she had the knack of knowing how to speak. Without in the least uttering a sermon, she had the power of awaking the best in each of the young lives. The girls were enthusiastic about their head-mistress. They loved her almost with passion. Miss Peacock was fond of saying to them:
"I intend you to obey your teachers. I have made rules for your guidance, and those rules are not to be broken, but I have made no rule—not one—with regard to your conduct to me. I will leave that conduct to the love you bear me. If you don't love me, nothing I can do will make you; if you do, all will be easy—for those who love try hard to please the beloved."
Amongst the girls who most adored Miss Lavinia Peacock was Star. Star had naturally a most vivacious, brilliant, and affectionate nature. All that was good and beautiful in her character was drawn out by Miss Peacock, and the idea of going to her private room now filled her with the strangest sensations.
"Under ordinary circumstances I should love it," thought the girl. "As it is——"
She trembled exceedingly as she turned the handle of the door and entered. The room, with its bright fire, its beautiful decorations, its lovely pictures, its still more beautiful flowers, soothed Star as it always did; but then the memory of Christian—Christian ill, very ill—Christian treated, as it seemed to the girl herself now, with great cruelty, came over her, and flinging herself into a chair, she wept.
"Why have I been dragged into this?" she thought. "What am I to do? No, I won't tell what I know. If I couldn't tell last night, still less can I tell now. Oh, poor Christian! poor Christian!"
It was just then when Miss Peacock entered. She noticed at a swift glance Star's attitude of utter despair. She did not make any remark, however, but going to her accustomed chair near the fire, she took up her knitting and began to knit. Her whole attitude was the very essence of peace. Star, who had been sobbing so violently that she could not altogether restrain herself, soon ceased her tears. Presently, with wet eyes and flushed face, she glanced at her teacher. Miss Peacock, to all appearance, was in a dream. She was knitting, but her eyes were gazing straight before her. Sometimes her lips moved. Her face was pale; her eyes were full of trouble.