"And your love, too?" she said, looking up with imploring eyes; "oh, surely not your love as well?"

"I ask you frankly, Cecil," replied Mrs. Willis, "can perfect love exist without perfect confidence? I would not willingly deprive you of my love, but of necessity the love I have hitherto felt for you must be altered--in short, the old love, which enabled me to rest on you and trust you, will cease."

Cecil covered her face with her hands.

"This punishment is very cruel," she said. "You are right; it reaches down to my very heart. But," she added, looking up with a strong and sweet light in her face, "I will try and bear it, and some day you will understand."

"Listen, Cecil," said Mrs. Willis; "you have just told me you have prayed to G.o.d, and have asked Him to show you the right path. Now, my dear, suppose we kneel together, and both of us ask Him to show us the way out of this difficult matter. I want to be guided to use the right words with you, Cecil. You want to be guided to receive the instruction which I, as your teacher and mother-friend, would give you."

Cecil and Mrs. Willis both knelt down, and the head-mistress said a few words in a voice of great earnestness and entreaty; then they resumed their seats.

"Now, Cecil," said Mrs. Willis, "you must remember in listening to me that I am speaking to you as I believe G.o.d wishes me to. If I can convince you that you are doing wrong in concealing what you know from me, will you act as I wish in the matter?"

"I long to be convinced," said Cecil, in a low tone.

"That is right, my dear; I can now speak to you with perfect freedom. My words you will remember, Cecil, are now, I firmly believe, directed by G.o.d; they are also the result of a large experience. I have trained many girls. I have watched the phases of thought in many young minds. Cecil, look at me. I can read you like a book."

Cecil looked up expectantly.

"Your motive for this concealment is as clear as the daylight, Cecil. You are keeping back what you know because you want to shield some one. Am I not right, my dear?"

The color flooded Cecil's pale face. She bent her head in silent a.s.sent, but her eyes were too full of tears, and her lips trembled too much to allow her to speak.

"The girl you want to defend," continued Mrs. Willis, in that clear, patient voice of hers, "is one whom you and I both love--is one for whom we both have prayed--is one for whom we would both gladly sacrifice ourselves if necessary. Her name is----"

"Oh, don't," said Cecil imploringly--"don't say her name; you have no right to suspect her."

"I must say her name, Cecil, dear. If you suspect Annie Forest, why should not I? You do suspect her, do you not, Cecil?"

Cecil began to cry.

"I know it," continued Mrs. Willis. "Now, Cecil, we will suppose, terrible as this suspicion is, fearfully as it pains us both, that Annie Forest _is_ guilty. We must suppose for the sake of my argument that this is the case. Do you not know, my dear Cecil, that you are doing the falsest, cruelest thing by dear Annie in trying to hide her sin from me?

Suppose, just for the sake of our argument, that this cowardly conduct on Annie's part was never found out by me; what effect would it have on Annie herself?"

"It would save her in the eyes of the school," said Cecil.

"Just so; but G.o.d would know the truth. Her next downfall would be deeper. In short, Cecil, under the idea of friendship you would have done the cruelest thing in all the world for your friend."

Cecil was quite silent.

"This is one way to look at it," continued Mrs. Willis; "but there are many other points from which this case ought to be viewed. You owe much to Annie, but not all--you have a duty to perform to your other schoolfellows. You have a duty to perform to me. If you possess a clue which will enable me to convict Annie Forest of her sin, in common justice you have no right to withhold it. Remember, that while she goes about free and unsuspected, some other girl is under the ban--some other girl is watched and feared. You fail in your duty to your schoolfellows when you keep back your knowledge, Cecil. When you refuse to trust me, you fail in your duty to your mistress; for I cannot stamp out this evil and wicked thing from our midst unless I know all. When you conceal your knowledge, you ruin the character of the girl you seek to shield. When you conceal your knowledge, you go against G.o.d's express wish. There--I have spoken to you as He directed me to speak."

Cecil suddenly sprang to her feet.

"I never thought of all these things," she said. "You are right, but it is very hard, and mine is only a suspicion. Oh, do be tender to her, and--forgive me--may I go away now?"

As she spoke, she pulled out the torn copy of Mrs. Browning, laid it on her teacher's lap, and ran swiftly out of the chapel.

CHAPTER XIII.

TALKING OVER THE MYSTERY.

Annie Forest, sitting in the midst of a group of eager admirers, was chatting volubly. Never had she been in higher spirits, never had her pretty face looked more bright and daring.

Cecil Temple coming into the play-room, started when she saw her. Annie, however, instantly rose from the low ha.s.sock on which she had perched herself and, running up to Cecil, put her hand through her arm.

"We are all discussing the mystery, darling," she said; "we have discussed it, and literally torn it to shreds, and yet never got at the kernel. We have guessed and guessed what your motive can be in concealing the truth from Mrs. Willis, and we all unanimously vote that you are a dear old martyr, and that you have some admirable reason for keeping back the truth. You cannot think what an excitement we are in--even Susy Drummond has stayed awake to listen to our chatter. Now, Cecil, do come and sit here in this most inviting little arm-chair, and tell us what our dear head-mistress said to you in the chapel. It did seem so awful to send you to the chapel, poor dear Cecil."

Cecil stood perfectly still and quiet while Annie was pouring out her torrent of eager words; her eyes, indeed, did not quite meet her companion's, but she allowed Annie to retain her clasp of her arm, and she evidently listened with attention to her words. Now, however, when Miss Forest tried to draw her into the midst of the eager and animated group who sat round the play-room fire, she hesitated and looked longingly in the direction of her peaceful little drawing-room. Her hesitation, however, was but momentary. Quite silently she walked with Annie down the large play-room and entered the group of girls.

"Here's your throne, Queen Cecil," said Annie, trying to push her into the little arm-chair; but Cecil would not seat herself.

"How nice that you have come, Cecil!" said Mary Pierce, a second-cla.s.s girl. "I really think--we all think--that you were very brave to stand out against Mrs. Willis as you did. Of course we are devoured with curiosity to know what it means; arn't we, Flo?"

"Yes, we're in agonies," answered Flo Dunstan, another second-cla.s.s girl.

"You will tell exactly what Mrs. Willis said, darling heroine?" proceeded Annie in her most dulcet tones. "You concealed your knowledge, didn't you? you were very firm, weren't you? dear, brave love!"

"For my part, I think Cecil Temple the soul of brave firmness," here interrupted Susan Drummond. "I fancy she's as hard and firm in herself when she wants to conceal a thing as that rocky sweetmeat which always hurts our teeth to get through. Yes, I do fancy that."

"Oh, Susy, what a horrid metaphor!" here interrupted several girls.

One, however, of the eager group of schoolgirls had not opened her lips or said a word; that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil's conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for the first time, she spoke.

"I think, if you will allow her, that Cecil has got something to say,"

she remarked.

Cecil glanced down at her with a very brief look of grat.i.tude.

"Thank you, Hester," she said. "I won't keep you a moment, girls. I cannot offer to throw any light on the mystery which makes us all so miserable to-day; but I think it right to undeceive you with regard to myself. I have not concealed what I know from Mrs. Willis. She is in possession of all the facts, and what I found in my desk this morning is now in her keeping. She has made me see that in concealing my knowledge I was acting wrongly, and whatever pain has come to me in the matter, she now knows all."

When Cecil had finished her sad little speech she walked straight out of the group of girls, and, without glancing at one of them, went across the play-room to her own compartment. She had failed to observe a quick and startled glance from Susan Drummond's sleepy blue eyes, nor had she heard her mutter--half to her companions, half to herself:

"Cecil is not like the rocky sweetmeat; I was mistaken in her."

Neither had Cecil seen the flash of almost triumph in Hester's eyes, nor the defiant glance she threw at Miss Forest. Annie stood with her hands clasped, and a little frown of perplexity between her brows, for a moment; then she ran fearlessly down the play-room, and said in a low voice at the other side of Cecil's curtains:

"May I come in?"

Cecil said "Yes," and Annie, entering the pretty little drawing-room, flung her arms round Miss Temple's neck.

"Cecil," she exclaimed impulsively, "you're in great trouble. I am a giddy, reckless thing, I know, but I don't laugh at people when they are in real trouble. Won't you tell me all about it, Cecil?"

"I will, Annie. Sit down there and I will tell you everything. I think you have a right to know, and I am glad you have come to me. I thought perhaps--but no matter. Annie, can't you guess what I am going to say?"