A wave of horror swept over Anne. She had not meant to do it, but she had spoken, and to try to explain would be to condemn Tommy and the rest of the school.
"Did any one speak?" asked Miss Mary again.
Anne stood up, her face flaming.
"I—I—did—" she faltered.
"Oh, Anne—" said Miss Mary, while the girls and boys dropped their eyes for very shame. "Oh, Anne, why did you do it—"
"I just did it—" stammered Anne, who would rather have died than have blamed Tommy, and Nannie, and Amelia, and the rest of her friends.
"Well, then," said Miss Mary, firmly, "I'm sorry, but you will have to sit on the platform the rest of the morning, and I can't let you take part in the Saturday's entertainment. I must have order and I will have it."
And that was Miss Mary's second piece of injustice. But then she had a headache, and children on Monday mornings are troublesome.
For one hour Anne sat with her head held high and her fair little face flushed and burning. But she did not cry. And Tommy, bowed to the ground by his sense of guilt in the matter, did not dare to look at the patient, suffering martyr.
It was thus that Launcelot Bart, coming in just before twelve o'clock to see Tommy, found her.