All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return.
Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,—
“The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please.”
Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment’s hesitation Susan named them.
“Thank you,” Miss Ashton said pleasantly. “That is all now.”
“All now, now,” repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. “Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?” 118
Miss Drake, Susan’s teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term.
In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about “Storied West Rock” was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone.
She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people’s notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, “The partaker is as bad as the thief.”
Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, “Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?” What should she answer? To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled.