"Can you support your cousin's statement that she was in the schoolroom all the evening, and never once left it?"
Anna was about to say "yes," when she hesitated, and grew very red and confused. "I—I couldn't say," she stammered, and those listening thought she was embarrassed by her desire to shield Kitty, and at the same time tell the truth. Kitty looked at her with wide, horrified eyes. Surely Anna would say why she could not give the required assurance. But only too soon the conviction was borne in on her that Anna did not mean to tell, and Anna was an adept at saying nothing, yet conveying a stronger impression than if she had said much. Those looking on read in Kitty's horrified eyes only a fear of what Anna might admit, and opinion was strengthened against her.
"Speak out frankly, Anna," said Miss Richards encouragingly. "Did you notice her absence?"
"She—a—Kitty wasn't there once when I went back to the room," murmured
Anna, apparently with great reluctance.
Kitty's head reeled. She could not believe that she had heard aright. Anna was not only concealing her own guilt, but was actually fastening it on to her. "I think I must be going mad, or going to faint," she thought to herself. "I can't take in what they are saying." "But, Anna," she cried, in her extremity forgetting judge and jury, "you know father had come to me with Miss Richards's letter. I was with him when you came in."
"No," said Anna, with a look of injured innocence, "I didn't know. You didn't tell me. Of course I—I knew you were somewhere," she stammered lamely. "I don't say you were out of the house, only—well I couldn't say you were in the room if you weren't, could I?" with a glance at Miss Richards for approbation, and a half-glance at Kitty, whose gray eyes were full of a scorn that was not pleasant to meet.
Kitty could not speak for a moment, her indignation and disgust were too intense. She felt herself degraded by stooping to ask for evidence as to her own innocence.
Miss Melinda whispered to Miss Richards. Miss Richards looked at Kitty and bade her turn round. Kitty, wondering, obeyed.
"How do you account for the fact that your dress is splashed to the waist with mud?" Miss Richards asked frigidly. "Yesterday was quite fine until after you had all gone home from school, then heavy rain fell."
Poor Kitty. Here was Nemesis indeed! Two days ago that skirt had been put aside to be brushed, and now, to-day, without giving a thought to the mud on it, she had put it on and worn it. With crimsoning cheeks she wheeled around. "That mud has been there for days, Miss Richards," she said shamefacedly. "I ought to have brushed it yesterday, but I didn't, and to-day I forgot it." But she saw and felt that no one believed her, and Betty, the only one who could have borne out her words, was not there.