“Very well, Miss Ashton, you can report me, and you can say, at the same time, that it’s a wonder that I was alive to talk at all, for what I’ve gone through this day, and this night, I alone can tell.”
I plumped down on my box, and I leaned my back against the wall, and I had to cry. Then all the girls set off together. Lucy Carr sat up in bed, and she put her arms about my neck; she was a nice girl, was Lucy Carr, we hardly ever quarrelled.
“Never mind her, my love; you know what she’s like; she can’t help it, it’s her nature. Don’t you cry, my dear.”
And then there were such remarks as “It’s a shame!” “Poor dear!” and “How can people be so cruel?” from the others. But Miss Ashton was not touched, not she; she simply said, in her cold, hard tones:
“Miss Carr, Miss Sheepshanks, Miss Flick, Miss James, I shall report you for talking after midnight.”
“That’s right,” said Lucy, “and much good may our money do you. I wish it would burn a hole in your pocket!”
Then the girls were still. Of course they did not want to lose all their money, and there was no knowing what the fine might be for talking at that time of night, and especially for keeping on. So I sat on my box, and I wiped my eyes; I never do believe much in crying, and somehow I felt too mad for a regular weep. I should like to have given Miss Ashton a real good shaking—everything would go wrong!
Just as I was beginning to undress—I actually had unhooked my bodice—I thought of what the object in the grey canvas cloth had slipped into my hand. What had become of it? In my agitation I had forgotten all about it. I was holding it when I came into the room—I remembered that. What had become of it since? I felt on my knee; it was not there. I had not put it in my pocket. It must have dropped on the floor. Intending to start a search I put out my foot and touched something with my toe. I reached out my hand; it was the scrap of paper.
As I picked it up I knew quite well that there could be nothing in it of the slightest consequence. People don’t give things worth having to perfect strangers, especially such people as that creature in the canvas cloth. Yet there had been a good deal of fuss. First the man in the long black coat had given me a scrap of paper; then the thin man had egged on the stout man to snatch it from me like a hungry lion; then, to regain it in his possession the black-coated man had attacked the two others like some mad wild beast; finally, to crown all, the canvas cloth creature had put into my hand what seemed to be the identical scrap of paper as I stood on the threshold of the door. There must be something of interest connected with the thing; or why had these persons, in spite of what Emily had said, all utter strangers to me, behaved in such an extraordinary manner?
I was both tired and sleepy, but I was more worried than either. Part of my worry had to do with that scrap of paper. What was in it? I was sure I should never sleep until I knew. It was about half an inch broad, and an inch and a half long. As I pressed it with my fingers, I could feel that something was inside, something queer-shaped and hard. The room was pretty dark. All the light there was came through the sides of the badly fitting blind from the lamp on the opposite side of the street. I could not get the paper open. It was fastened in some way I did not understand. As I held it up against the shaft of light which came through the side of the blind, to make out, if possible, what the trick of the fastening was, a queer thing took place.