"Don't deliberately misunderstand me. Who threw that stone?"
"The stone?" Clare's innocent voice repeated, but Muriel knew that the situation was growing serious. With the ardent heroism of a martyr, she flung herself into the breach—in other words, her head appeared over the rock by the side of Clare. Desire to serve her beloved had vanquished fear, hesitation and conscientiousness.
"It wasn't Clare's fault, Miss Reeve," she called. "We were trying to get to the other path, and—and I slipped, and that set some stones rattling down, and Clare came to stop me falling, and I do hope that nobody's hurt."
Relieved to find that this was not a situation requiring to be dealt with by a major punishment, an embarrassing ordeal at the best of times, devastating when the culprit was Clare Duquesne, Miss Reeve contented herself with a haughty stare.
"I do not think that you two have been behaving very nicely. It is not ladylike to climb these high rocks, and I am sure that it is dangerous. Please come down at once, both of you."
It was impossible to scold two heads detached from bodies, appearing from the sky like cherubs from a Christmas card cloud. Muriel and Clare withdrew.
Safely back behind the rock, Clare chuckled delightedly.
"I didn't know you had it in you, Muriel; that was quite magnificent."
But Muriel, to her own surprise as much as Clare's, suddenly began to cry, aloud and helplessly, like a little child.
"But, Muriel, chérie, what is the matter?"