“Oh, with your connivance. How?”
“Well, you see, I could write better essays than most girls in the school, and—and—it was arranged, and—and I consented to give up my essay to the girl who wanted to go, and to allow her to put her signature to it, and I took her essay and put my signature to hers. So she got the first prize for literature and left the school, and I stayed on, my reward being that my fees were to be paid for the ensuing year. That is the wicked thing I have done, and it has sunk into my heart and has made life unendurable.”
“Thank you; thank you very much,” said Mr Manchuri.
Priscilla bowed her head. The old man started up and began to pace up and down the room. After a time he went up to the girl, just touched her on her bowed head, and said very gently: “We will judge this thing, if you please, in the presence of my daughter Esther. Come with me now to her room; you shall see her. The portrait of her is so good that you will almost feel that you are looking at her living self.” Priscilla rose tremblingly. She was weak and exhausted in every limb, but it seemed to her that a powerful hand was drawing her forward, and that she had very little will to resist. Mr Manchuri took the girl up to a room on the first floor. It was a beautifully large room, but scantily furnished. He lit some candles that had been previously arranged in front of a large picture which stood on an easel. This picture had been painted by one of the great portrait-painters of thirty years ago. It was a most speaking likeness, and Priscilla, when first she saw it, started, turned very white, and clasped Mr Manchuri’s hand.
“Why, it is I!” she said; “it is I! I have seen myself like—like that in the glass.”
Mr Manchuri drew a deep breath of relief.
“Didn’t I know it?” he said. “Didn’t I say that you were like her? And see—she smiles at you.—You forgive Priscilla, don’t you, Esther? Smile at her again, Esther, if you forgive her.” The smile on the young face of the girl who had so long been dead seemed to become more pronounced, more sweet, more radiant.
“There,” said Mr Manchuri, “Esther has judged just as God does, I take it; and the thing is forgiven as only God forgives; but what you have to do, Priscilla Weir, is this. You have to put yourself right with your schoolmistress, and in doing so you cannot, in any justice, shield your schoolfellows. I am no fool, dear girl, and I know their names well enough. One of them is that Miss Lushington whom I met at the Hotel Belle Vue, and the other—the girl who arranged the plot and carried it through with such cleverness—is no less an individual than my little quondam friend, Annie Brooke. You see, my dear, there is no genius in my making this discovery, for I have heard them both talk of Mrs Lyttelton’s school, and Miss Brooke often entertained me in the most charming way by giving me a minute description of Miss Lushington’s talents and how she won the great literature prize. Little, little did I then guess that I should be so much interested in you, my dear. We will leave Esther now. Come downstairs with me again.”