"No, take her to the door," suggested another voice.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" This was Miss Parks.
Marjorie arose to her feet, pushed some one away from her, and fled from them all—down the schoolroom, though the cloak-room out to the fresh air.
She needed the stiff worth-wester to bring her back to herself. Miss Prudence had lived through that! And Prue must grow up to know! Did Miss Prudence mean that she must decide about that before Prue could come to school? She remembered now that a look, as if she were in pain, had shot itself across her eyes. Oh, that she would take poor little Prue back to California where nobody knew. If some one should tell her a story like that about her own dear honest father it would kill her! She never could bear such shame and such disappointment in him. But Prue need never know if Miss Prudence took her away to-day, to-morrow. But Miss Prudence had had it to bear so long. Was that sorrow—and the blessing with it—the secret of her lovely life? And Mr. Holmes, the master! Marjorie was overwhelmed with this new remembrance of him. He was another one to bear it. Now she understood his solitary life. Now she knew why he shrank from anything like making himself known. The depth of the meaning of some of his favorite sayings flashed over her. She even remembered one of her own childish questions, and his brief, stern affirmative: "Mr. Holmes, were you ever in a prison?" How much they had borne together, these two! And now they had Prue to love and to live for. She would never allow even a shadow of jealousy of poor little Prue again. Poor little Prue, with such a heritage of shame. How vehemently and innocently she had declared that she would not be called Jeroma.
The wind blew sharply against her; she stepped back and closed the door; she was shivering while her cheeks were blazing. She would go home, she could not stay through the hour of the afternoon and be looked at and commented upon. Was not Miss Prudence's shame and sorrow her own? As she was reaching for her cloak she remembered that she must ask to be excused, taking it down and throwing it over her arm she re-entered the schoolroom.
Master McCosh was writing at the table, a group of girls were clustered around one of the registers.
"It was mean! It was real mean!" a voice was exclaiming.
"I don't see how you could tell her, Clarissa Parks! You know she adores Miss Pomeroy."
"You all seemed to listen well enough," retorted Miss Parks.
"We were spell-bound. We couldn't help it," excused Emma Downs.