Jaquelina looked startled.
"Will the punishment, indeed, be so severe?" she cried. "I did not know that! I only thought——"
"Do not begin to repent of your brave deed, Miss Meredith," cried Walter Earle, gayly, at her side. "Of course he will go into imprisonment for life, or for a very long term of years, certainly—and deserves it, too, the handsome rascal!"
"Then you do not think I acted wrong?" said Jaquelina, almost piteously.
"Wrong! no, indeed!" said Walter Earle. "I think you are a perfect little heroine."
"So do I," "And I," "And I," cried a score of voices; but Ronald Valchester, whose opinion she longed to hear, was gravely silent.
No one could induce the gifted student to utter his opinion on that one subject—whether or not Jaquelina had treated Gerald Huntington unfairly.
When asked about it afterward, as he often was, he distinctly and invariably declined to discuss it.
Walter Earle, his dear friend, could not chaff him into betraying himself.
Violet, though she coaxed and teased bewitchingly, could not charm his thoughts from him. He kept his opinion to himself.