“I was so happy; but that doesn’t matter,” she thought. “The thing now to do is to know how to save Brenda. Can I save her by—by—trying to get money for her? But then I couldn’t get money. Oh, yes, I could, though—or at least perhaps I could, I don’t know. I wouldn’t ask the girls again for all the world—but there’s the squire; he might—might lend it to me. I’d have to tell him a lot of lies—and I shouldn’t like that. I must sink down to Brenda’s level in order to save her! Oh, Brenda, I can’t, I just can’t! Brenda, why did you do it? And I had got that twenty pounds for you. Why did you steal the bangle and put every one on the wrong scent and get us into the power of that terrible, unscrupulous Mademoiselle! She’ll do what she said she would—there’s no sort of hope from her. Oh, what am I—what am I to do!”
“Do right,” whispered a voice in her ear. This voice spoke light and clear from the conscience of Penelope Carlton, and it was so startling in its tone that it seemed to her that some one spoke to her. She started and looked out, gazing to right and left. As she did this, some one who was walking below, saw her. That some one was Honora. She observed the white, very white face of the girl and noticed its agony. All of a sudden, Honora came to a resolve.
“There is something wrong,” she thought to herself. “It’s not an ordinary headache. I don’t like that sister of hers a bit—we none of us do. She has done something to make poor little Pen unhappy. I just think that I’ll force myself on her this very night. She is too miserable to be left alone; of that I am sure.”
Mary L’Estrange and Cara Burt, walking arm in arm, came now into view.
“What is the matter, Honora?” said Mary.
“Why do you ask?” questioned Nora.
Mary gave a laugh.
“You look something like what you did that evening when you refused to take the part of Helen of Troy.”
“Oh, we needn’t bother about that now,” said Honora, a slight tone of vexation in her voice. Then she added, suddenly: “I am not quite happy about Pen; I don’t think she is well. I am going to her.”
“But she has only a headache,” said Cara, “and no wonder, out all this hot day in the sun.”