Third Cla.s.s--it was not there! Rhoda gave a little gulp, and began again from the very beginning. She had been too quick, too eager. It was so easy to miss a number. One by one she conned them over, but it was not there. The long Pa.s.s List lay below, and she looked at it with dreary indifference. To scramble through with the rabble was a sorry attainment, or it seemed so for one moment, but at the next it became, suddenly, a wild, impossible dream, for--the number was not there! No fear of overlooking this time, for the figures stood out as if printed in fire, and burned themselves into her brain. The number was not in the First Cla.s.s, nor the Second, nor the Third; it was not in the Pa.s.s List, it was not mentioned at all.

If she had ever permitted herself to antic.i.p.ate such a situation, which she had not, Rhoda would have pictured herself flying into a paroxysm of despair; but in reality she felt icy cold, and it was in a tone almost of indifference that she announced:

"I am plucked! I have not pa.s.sed at all."

"Never mind, dear; you did your best, and the work matters more than the result. Very uncertain tests, these examinations--I never cared about them," said her father kindly, and Mrs Chester smiled in her usual placid fashion, and murmured, "Oh, I expect it's a mistake. It's so easy to make a mistake in printing figures. You will find it is all right, darling, later on. Have some jam!"

They were absolutely placid; absolutely calm; absolutely unconscious of the storm of emotion raging beneath that quiet exterior; but Harold glanced at his sister with the handsome eyes which looked so sleepy, but which were in reality so remarkably wide-awake, and said slowly:

"I think Rhoda has finished, mother. You don't want any jam, do you, Ro? Come into the garden with me instead. I want a stroll."

He walked out through the French window, and Rhoda followed with much the same feeling of relief as that with which a captive escapes from the prison which seems to be on the point of suffocating him, mentally and physically. Brother and sister paced in silence down the path leading to the rose garden. Harold was full of sympathy, but, man-like, found it difficult to put his thoughts into words, and Rhoda, after all, was the first to speak. She stopped suddenly in the middle of the path, and confronted him with shining eyes. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.

"Harold, I--have--failed! I am plucked. I have not pa.s.sed at all--not even a common pa.s.s."

"No? I'm uncommonly sorry, but--"

"But do you realise it; do you understand what it means? I _think_ I do, but I don't. If I did, I should not be here talking quietly to you.

I should go mad! I should want to kill myself. I should be desperate!"

"Don't be silly now, Ro. It's a big disappointment, and I'm sorry for you, but it's not a bit of use working yourself into hysterics. Face the thing quietly, and see--"

"All that it means--. It means a good deal, Harold; more than you can understand. I think I'd rather be alone, please. You are very kind, but I can't stand consolation just yet. I'll sit in the arbour."

"Just as you please. I don't want to force myself, but I'd like to help you, old girl. Is there nothing else I can do?"

"Yes; keep mother away! Don't let her come near me until lunch. I am best left alone, and she doesn't understand--no one understands except those who have been at school, and know how--how hard--"

The girl's voice trembled, and broke off suddenly, and she walked away in the direction of the summer-house, while Harold thrust his hands into his pockets and kicked the pebbles on the gravel path. He was very fond of his impetuous young sister, and the quivering sob which had strangled her last word echoed painfully in his ears. He realised as neither father nor mother could do what such a failure meant to a proud, ambitious girl, and how far-reaching would be its consequences. It was not to-day nor to-morrow that would exhaust this trouble; the bitterest part was yet to come when she returned to school, and received the condolences of her more successful companions; when she sat apart and saw them receive their reward. Harold longed to be able to help, but there was nothing to do but persuade his parents to leave the girl alone, and to return at intervals to satisfy himself that she was still in her retreat, and not attempting to drown her sorrows in the lake.

Three times over he paced the path, and saw the white-robed figure sitting immovable, with elbows planted on the table, and falling locks hiding the face from view. So still she sat that he retired silently, hoping that she had fallen asleep, but on the fourth visit he was no longer alone, but accompanied by a graceful, girlish figure, and they did not halt until they stood on the very threshold of the arbour itself.

"Rhoda!" he cried, then, "look up! I have brought someone to you.

Someone you will be glad to see."

The flaxen mane was tossed back, and a flushed face raised in protest.

"I don't--" began Rhoda, and then suddenly sprang to her feet and stretched out her arms. "Oh, Evie--Evie! You have come. Oh, I wanted you--I wanted you so badly!"

Miss Everett stepped forward and drew the girl to her side, and Harold waited just long enough to see the fair head and the dark nestle together, and then took himself off to the house, satisfied that comfort had come at last.

"I have _failed_, Evie!" cried Rhoda, clasping her friend's hands, and staring at her with the same expression of incredulous horror with which she had confronted her brother a couple of hours earlier. "Yes, darling. I know."

"And what are you going to say to me, then?"

"Nothing, I think, for the moment, but that I love you dearly, and felt that I must come to be with you. Aren't you surprised to see me, Rhoda?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't feel anything. I wanted you, and then-- there you were! It seemed quite natural."

"But it was rather peculiar all the same. I have been staying with Tom, and we were both asked down to D-- for a four days' visit. That is only half an hour's rail from here, as you know; so this morning when I saw the list in the paper I thought at once--`I must see Rhoda! I will go down and chance finding her at home!'"

"Yes!"

"So I came, and am so glad to be with you, dear. I have seen your mother, and have promised to stay to lunch. I need not go back until four o'clock."

"Oh, that's nice. I like to have you. Evie, I believe it was the arithmetic. I was so ill, I could hardly think. You might as well know all now. It was my own doing. I had been working every morning before getting up, and that day I began at four. I tired myself out before the gong rang."

"I guessed as much. Dorothy told me that she heard someone turning over leaves!"

"Why don't you say, `I told you so!' then, and tell me that it's my own fault?"

"I--don't--know! Perhaps because I do so many foolish things myself; perhaps because I haven't the heart to scold you just now, you poor dear."

Rhoda's face quivered, but she pressed her lips together, and said with a gulp:

"I suppose--it's a childish trouble! I suppose--when I am old--and sensible--I shall look back on to-day, and laugh to think how I worried myself over such an unimportant trial."

"I am sure you will do nothing of the kind. You will be very, very sorry for yourself, and very pitiful, and very proud, too, if you can remember that you bore it bravely and uncomplainingly."

"But I can't! I can't bear it at all. It gets worse every moment. I keep remembering things that I had forgotten. Miss Bruce preaching, and Miss Mott staring through her spectacles--the girls all saying they are sorry, and the--the Record Wall, where I wanted to see my name! I _can't_ bear it, it's no use."

"But you will _have_ to bear it, Rhoda. It is a fact, and nothing that you can do will alter it now. You will have to bear it; but you can bear it in two ways, as you make up your mind to-day. You can cry and fret, and make yourself ill, and everyone else miserable, or you can brace yourself up to bear it bravely, and make everyone love and admire you more than they have ever done before. Which are you going to do?"

"I am going to be cross and horrid. I couldn't be good if I tried. I'm soured for life!" said Rhoda stoutly, but even as she spoke a smile struggled with her tears, and Evie laughed aloud--her sweet, ringing laugh.

"Poor, dear old thing! She looks so like it! I know better, and am not a bit afraid of you. You will be good and plucky, and rejoice unaffectedly in Kathleen's success."

"Has Kathleen--Oh! Is Kathleen first?"

"She has won the Scholarship. Yes, it will be such a joy. She needed it so badly, and has worked so hard."

"I hate her!"

"She was always kind to you. I remember the very first day she took you round the grounds. You were very good friends."

"I hate her, I tell you! I detest her name."

"I am sure you will write and congratulate her. Imagine if _your_ parents were poor, and you saw them hara.s.sed and anxious, how thankful you would feel to be able to help! Kathleen had a harder time than any of you, for she could take none of the nice, interesting `Extras.' I think all her friends will be glad that she has won."

"I shall be glad, too, in about ten years. If I said I was glad now I should be a hypocrite, for I wanted it myself. I suppose Irene is all right, and Bertha, and all the Head girls? Has--has Dorothy--"

"Yes, Dorothy has pa.s.sed too."

Rhoda cried aloud in bitter distress.

"Oh, Evie--oh! Dorothy pa.s.sed, and I have failed! Oh it is cruel-- unjust. I am cleverer than she! You can't deny it. I worked harder.

I was before her always, in every cla.s.s, in every exam. Oh, it's mean, it's mean that they should have put her before me!"

The tears streamed down her face, for this was perhaps the bitterest moment she had known. To be beaten by Kathleen, and Irene, was bearable, but--Dorothy! Easy-going, mediocre Dorothy, who had so little ambition that she could laugh at her own shortcomings, and contentedly call herself a "tortoise." Well, the tortoise had come off victor once more, and the poor, beaten hare sat quivering with mortified grief.

Miss Everett looked at her with perplexed, anxious eyes.