The President sighed.
“Who can understand the intricacies of a young girl’s heart,” she said. “I have been studying them for twenty years, and they are still a closed book to me.”
When Professor Green a little later returned the emerald ring to his cousin, he cut the visit as short as possible. He told her that she had deliberately and wrongfully accused one who had shielded her even at the risk of offending the President of Wellington College, and that it was he who had given the detective, already suspicious, the clue she wanted.
Judith wept bitterly, but her cousin showed no signs of relenting.
“If you want to be loved,” he said, “learn unselfishness and gentleness and truthfulness. These are the qualities that make men and women beloved. You will never gain anything by cheating and lying.”
The end of the episode was a pretty severe punishment for Judith Blount. She was suspended from college for three weeks and was compelled to resign from all societies for the rest of the winter. She left college next morning early, and no one saw her again until after Christmas, when she returned a much chastened and quieted young woman.
A few days after she had gone Molly received a note from her from New York. It read:
“Dear Miss Brown:
“Will you forgive me? I am very unhappy.
“Judith Blount.”