Alice acted somewhat the part of a jailer; she had to convey the disgraced girl to Middleton School.
"I am ill; I won't go," said Kitty, bursting into tears.
"You had much better come, Kitty," said Alice, speaking almost kindly for the first time in her life; she really pitied poor Kitty at that moment. "If you will only take your punishment patiently it will soon be over, and I know for a fact," she continued, "that many of the girls are only too anxious to make it up to you by and by."
"Oh, it's not that," said Kitty; "it is because I am so wretched. I have a great trouble at home; but there, there's no use in talking to you about it, Alice."
"So you always say," answered Alice. "Whenever I want to be the least bit good to you, you put me off; but never mind, I am sure I can do without your friendship. Anyhow, I think you must come to school unless you are so ill that mother will be obliged to send for the doctor."
"Oh, I don't want that," said Kitty, "I never had a doctor in my life.
If you'll wait for me, Alice, I'll go upstairs and put on my hat."
She rushed to her room, flung herself on her knees for a moment by her bedside, and uttered a frantic prayer to Heaven.
"Oh! God, in your mercy, keep Laurie from doing anything desperate," cried the unhappy girl. She then joined Alice downstairs. Her face was white; there were heavy black lines under her eyes; she had never looked prettier, more pathetic, more likely to win sympathy from the other girls.
At prayers that morning all eyes were directed to Kitty Malone. She was not allowed to sit with the others, but was given, a place on the bench with the teachers. Here she faced the rest of the school. It would have been a cruel position for another girl; but it did not matter to Kitty, for she saw no one present. Her eyes, with that queer inward look in them, were gazing straight, not at the scene before her, but at the old home in Ireland. The squire, whom she so passionately loved, roused to the last extremity of anger; the boy, whose heart was hers, crushed, trapped, imprisoned, his liberty taken from him. Kitty trembled from head to foot; she could scarcely restrain her terrible emotion.
After school she accompanied the others to the classroom, but in absolute silence. She was given her usual lessons to do, but at a table by herself. Her punishment was to be carried out in all its fullness; but, dreadful as it would seem to most, it did not touch her at all to-day. Her head ached, her eyes felt dim. Laurie's telegram, which lay in her pocket, seemed to scorch into the very depths of her heart. She had not even been allowed to answer it; the whole weight of her trouble lay unrelieved upon her. The poor child was unaccustomed to such anguish, and her self-control was in danger moment by moment of giving way.